


Straighten Up and Fly Right

by JoJo



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Brotherhood, Early Work, Gen, Mentors, Nightmares, Original Character(s), Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-01
Updated: 2012-10-01
Packaged: 2017-11-15 10:22:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 39,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/526243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoJo/pseuds/JoJo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shattered by the violent death of two close colleagues, Starsky and Hutch have never needed each other more. But their different ways of coping threaten first their partnership and then their lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> first posted to the BCL in June 2006

_Wait a minute..._

Crossing the squashy tarmac to his car under a blazing midday heat, Captain Dobey felt another one of those pesky twinges of self-doubt that plagued him whenever he was tired or under heavy pressure.

_...didn't I just give half my day shift the afternoon off? What the hell am I doing?_

There was generous and there was generous... but he suddenly realized he was going to be at the helm of a ghost-ship if he wasn't careful. The work wouldn't just go away, after all. Somebody had to be there to do it.

Then he glanced back at the house he had just left. Through the front window he could see his people still standing around Lizzie Fenn's front room in their suits and sober clothes.

It was Friday afternoon, early summer but steamy hot as it had been for days. Those people in there should all be watching the clock and planning their weekends around this heatwave, coming on or off shift, working the streets, working the system, in-fighting, playing their stupid jokes and leaving their goddamned half-eaten food all over the squadroom. Instead of which... they had put on their best black suits to bury Sergeant Milo Fenn. And, barring some kind of miracle, sometime very soon they were going to be putting on full dress uniform to bury Sergeant Tom Cassidy.

Captain Dobey stared up the road for a second. He badly wanted to go home. Go home and find Cal and tell him to forget his lame-brained idea of becoming a police officer like his daddy. Go home and be thankful it wasn't Edith and the kids handing out beer and sandwiches to a house full of shell-shocked cops.

But he couldn't. Not yet. He had to steer this ship back on course. Lead from the front. Instigate the inquiry, face the slavering press, pick up the pieces and then turn round and wait for the fallout.

The sound of the front-door opening across the way made him look back once more. Two of his men were drifting down the steps towards their own car which was parked on the driveway. In unconscious synchronization both had sought refuge behind dark glasses and were tugging at the knots of their black ties. They paused on either side of the red car and exchanged words over the roof.

Dobey squared his ample shoulders as he looked at them.

Fallout...

It was going to be tough and messy. And those two out there in the baking sun each hiding their gaze behind that impenetrable glass barrier... they were going to find it tougher and messier than most.

If he could just get to the end of the month without either one of them losing the plot... well then... the Captain -- himself a very resilient man, but not an especially optimistic one -- felt he would be doing very well indeed.


	2. Jumping

**_Some beers; Tom and Milo; the green light; a suicide; a pencil; Starsky plays it cool and Hutch strums..._ **

 

"What you wanna do?" Starsky asked, one hand leaning on the roof, the other tracing a line under the back of his collar.

Hutch managed to get out of his tie, balled it up and threw it through the open window on to the backseat of the Torino.

"Shift's not over," he said.

"Oh come on. The Cap'n said we could take a few hours."

"No, Starsky. He said anyone he didn't need right now could take a few hours."

"And you reckon he needs us?"

"More than ever."

Hutch ducked into the car and his partner followed.

"Nice neighborhood," Starsky commented, dredging the remark from a pit which contained mostly silence. They had set off at a slow trundle up the street.

"Well... Milo knew what he wanted," said Hutch in his best yes-this-is-a-topic-I-am-expert-in voice. "Picket fence, verandah, big backyard."

"Just to start," Starsky said with a sudden grin that surprised him. "The kid had his sights set on early promotion and Dobey's desk. He'd 'a got it too..."

"Oh I don't know. I'm not sure he was ready to leave Tom behind."

"Yeah?" Starsky glanced over, ready as usual to concede to Hutch's superior grasp of a premise, but Hutch looked away, out of his window. He wasn't going to say any of it.

Being partners. That was the thing that had mattered to them most. Everyone said it. Cassidy and Fenn. Just like us, but five years behind. Chalk and cheese, yet two peas in a pod. They should have had those five years. At least.

"You really want to go back?" Starsky asked as they slowed at a stop-light. He wasn't going to say any of it either. Sometime in the last few days they had made this tacit agreement -- a silent pact to sidestep the crater that had been left in their path -- and the atmosphere between them had been as flat as the LTD's front right tyre ever since.

"Dobey needs us," Hutch repeated. "He needs us to get on with things, be normal." Again Starsky looked over, but Hutch remained staring frontwards as if unaware of him.

"OK," said Starsky. There was a touch of irritation in his voice. "You want to do normal... let's do normal." And he accelerated hard, getting a squeal off the road-surface, leaving the traffic behind trailing in a cloud of fumes and dust.

In the end, they didn't make it very far through the rest of the day. Huggy Bear was on the phone at about four-thirty when he caught sight of Hutch coming through the door of his place with a round-shouldered gait. All the time he was finishing up the call he kept twisting around to monitor the progress of the blond man across the room. Huggy then followed him to the corner and leaned both arms on the edge of the table, eyebrows raised questioningly. Hutch, head against the wall, presented a limp palm and he flinched as Huggy slapped it with a will.

"Bitch of a day, Hug... bitch of a week."

"I heard."

"Could use a coffee."

"Nothin stronger?"

"Maybe later."

"OK, you got it. What have you done with your shadow? Finally flipped and did away with him, huh?"

Hutch stretched his legs out under the table. "He's checking out the plumbing."

Huggy met him ambling in as he made his way back to the counter. "Something hot and black?" he asked in passing.

"Oven caught fire again?"

"Coffee, Starsky. I'm offering coffee."

"Something cold and gold would be more in my line t'tell you the truth."

"Well you go and park your butt, my little curly friend," said Huggy. "And I will bring you your heart's desire."

"What the hell is Huggy on?" Starsky demanded, sliding into the chair opposite Hutch.

"Well not two funerals a week, that's for sure," said Hutch.

His partner did not react to the downbeat tone. When he had his beer in front of him he shifted his chair so he could look around while he drank it. Hutch was staring out across the room too, but Huggy, observing from his spot behind the bar, where he was diligently drying glasses, could see that they were both looking somewhere different. He knew they didn't always have to talk. But when they came in here, they were generally in the same universe, on either end of their invisible link, pulling it tight or giving it slack as the occasion demanded. This evening it seemed like it had snapped in the middle, and after a moment Hutch pushed aside his cup, got up and wandered out, leaving Starsky rubbing his eyes in bemusement.

Huggy checked out the staff, slung the drying-cloth over one shoulder and picked his way back over to the corner. He straddled the empty chair.

"So go on," he said. "Suppose you tell me all about these two cops."

You could always count on Starsky, and sure enough, Starsky had a smile for him, a smile that told Huggy he was remembering something. "They were just two cops, Hug."

"Yeah, two cops who went and got themselves pumped fulla lead in the middle of a simple shakedown. How'd that happen?"

The smile disappeared like a popped balloon. "That's easy... 'cos of us, Huggy, that's how. Tom and Milo went and got themselves pumped full of lead because of me and Hutch."

Huggy waited for an add-on, but Starsky just gave a helpless shrug. Huggy got to his feet. "Don't move," he said, "I'm going to get you another beer."

*

When Cassidy and Fenn passed the Sergeant's exam nobody was surprised and everyone was pleased. Captain Dobey was clear that he needed teams like them, with an ear for what they were hearing and an eye for what they were seeing. Just like their unofficial mentors, Starsky and Hutchinson, who provided the cue for a celebration when they managed to unbolt their proteges' lockers from the wall and sent them up in the elevator to the tenth floor, where the Commissioner resided.

They were talented, and ambitious, the new Sergeants. Well, Fenn was ambitious. Logical, educated, popular and razor-sharp, he spent much of his time off persuading his new wife Lizzie that she didn't really want to move back to Chicago. His partner, "Butch" Cassidy -- so named, said Fenn, because he couldn't shoot straight -- was a local goofball made good, who rattled through their casework on a mixture of uncanny intuition and high-octane energy.

And they hung out together. Liked to shoot pool, get drunk occasionally. Fenn would watch Cassidy ride his motorcycle round in circles on the racetrack. Cassidy made out he was going to apply for membership of Fenn's racketball club, so he could bait the preppies, but he was just joking. It was Cassidy who introduced his partner to Lizzie -- he knew they would be perfect for one another, and he was right.

It was that same old thing. Partners in the squadroom and on the street, an outfit that got results. Best friends when they clocked off. Endlessly charmed with each other's company and loyal to a fault. The kind of rare thing that Dobey cherished, because it worked in his accounts book, but dreaded because he was so very afraid for them. Everyone was always drawing comparisons.

"Well of course Starsky and Hutchinson weren't quite so confident when they first made Sergeant," Dobey had said, trying to play it all down, for everyone's sake.

"I was just worried this curly-headed clown was going to get me into trouble," was Hutch's contention.

"Whaddya mean we weren't so confident?" Starsky demanded. "Confident enough to go undercover on our first case."

"Didn't you fail the Sergeant's exam first time round, Starsky?" Cassidy questioned, easily walking the line between due deference and healthy disrespect.

"Only the writing bit," Starsky had told him. "The slapping smartass junior officers round the head bit I passed."

*

"OK, so they came from the Starsky and Hutchinson school of bust'em and rust'ems," Huggy said.

"And flunked their final exam."

"And that was your fault how exactly?"

Starsky sucked at his beer. Huggy knew a lot about how things worked, but he didn't know everything.

"They wanted to take on this job -- this rust'em bust'em job -- catch these guys fencing stolen goods, and land Duke King at the same time."

"The Duke King? The Duke? The King? The King of Duke?"

Starsky narrowed his eyes. "Yeah, that's right, Hug, you catch on real quick."

"But the Duke doesn't fence stolen goods."

"Oh he does... when he gets tired 'a flooding the streets with smack and killing people."

Huggy chewed his cheek. "Sounds like the kind of job you and your blond ace would be good at."

"We thought so," said Starsky. He suddenly sounded weary where before he had been running on his lively setting. "And so did the Cap. But those two... they kinda persuaded us otherwise. And then we persuaded him."

"What went wrong?"

"Guess they didn't cover all the bases," Starsky said, his casual gesture not fooling Huggy Bear for a minute. "It happens when you don't have the experience, when you're keen and green... by the time we realized... it was all over, Milo had his face blown off and Butch had taken a couple in the chest." He paused, rubbing his own chest. "And the King of Duke was long gone." He ran a finger around the rim of his now-empty glass and then gazed into the bottom of it speculatively. "Hutch has taken it bad."

" _Hutch_ has taken it bad?" Huggy echoed, looking closely at him, but Starsky didn't have his listening ears on.

"Ah, Hug, you know what he's like... and it wasn't up to us to send them in there when they weren't ready."

"You didn't," said Huggy.

"As good as," Starsky persisted.

"More beer?"

Starsky looked up and half grinned. "You trying to get me drunk, Huggy? No, I'll pass. Gotta go home and spruce up."

"Hot date?"

Starsky got to his feet, digging in his pocket for some bills. He dropped them on the table and managed to find a wink as well. "Not yet," he said.

*

The Saturday shift looked bruisey around the eyes. Dobey came in to check over the squadroom but he was in his weekend attire, which told them he wasn't staying. Most of those who'd been to Fenn's funeral weren't working, and those that were had clearly had a long night one way or another.

"Any news from the hospital?" Hutch came in to ask. He had burned off some of his feelings by battering at things in the gym, but peculiar dreams and too much coffee were working against him. Starsky seemed to have an aversion to bright light and his clothes gave the impression that he wasn't quite sure where he'd woken up. Or why.

"They're going to make a decision about switching off life support soon," said Dobey matter-of-factly. The hospital had been on the phone to him before dawn. "Have you two been down there?"

"No," said Hutch, nervous, while his partner rolled one of Dobey's pens between his teeth. "We didn't want to get in the way."

"Well I think you need to go," Dobey said sharply, "And sooner rather than later. If you don't, you'll only regret it."

Hutch was still reluctant, even when they got there.

"What can we do?" he muttered. "Why would Cassidy's parents want us hanging around? Of all people."

"It's just a courtesy call," Starsky told him.

Tom Cassidy, only twenty-seven years old. He looked it too, or even younger, laboring against the ventilator, his torso bound up in white, palms to the ceiling. Hutch had thought they'd be told thank you for coming, but please go away now. He thought they would get a glimpse and then be ushered from the scene back into the hot, dry streets.

But all of a sudden they were there in the room, one nurse standing back to let them close.

"He was conscious awhile yesterday," she said. "But there's not much going on now. It's only a matter of time I'm afraid."

Not a word came to Hutch's lips. He was silent, watching the green blip as it traveled across the screen, aware of a rushing sound beginning to blow towards him.

'Butch' Cassidy. When they had got to the scene, a matter of minutes too late, he had been able to crawl a few yards to reach them before collapsing. His head shook against Starsky's hands and his damp, reddened fingers pressed into Hutch's. 'How's Milo? Tell me... tell me... how's Milo?' They told him to hang on, that they didn't know about Milo yet -- even though they did, even though they had already seen what was left of him only a few yards away.

He'd never stopped asking for Fenn, the nurse said. And no-one had the heart to tell him the truth. He slipped into terminal unconsciousness still hoping he was about to get a visit from the one who could pull him through.

Stepping forward to brush a bit of black hair from Cassidy's forehead Starsky said, "Take it easy, Tommy." He let his eyes slip up to his partner and he knew he had to move quick.

"Let's go," he said, one hand curling around Hutch's nearest shoulder and the other one pressing flat somewhere near his kidneys. "You need some air. Don't you fall down on me in here, Hutchinson, these people have better things to do."

Hutch allowed himself to be shunted out of the room, but he shook Starsky off with some force once they were out in the corridor. "I'm alright," he said, the rushing sound beginning to fade, the black speckles receding from his vision.

"Sure you are," Starsky replied.

In the elevator the one stood planted, hands on hips, while the other leaned against the wall, head down.

"Well we did our duty," Starsky said as they walked out across the concourse.

"Yeah, you play it cool," said Hutch, but he made sure he said it real quiet.

The temperature was soaring outside. Starsky loped off to a vending machine to get a Coke. When he got back, Hutch was still propping himself up on the car, his head pressed to the arm stretched against the roof. Starsky took a swig and then nudged Hutch's arm with it.

Hutch waved the offering away. He put his back to the car door instead and folded his arms over his chest. "I couldn't take it," he announced.

"Yeah I know, that's why I got you out."

"No, Starsky, I mean I couldn't take it if... if it was..."

"Would you quit that?"

"Well that's the reality!" Hutch snapped at him. "Of one mistake, one unplanned move, one unexpected circumstance..."

"Hutch, don't do this, huh? I know we lost Milo. I know we're losing Tom. But it isn't us, OK?" Starsky swigged again, deeply, until the fizz made him cough. "I thought we were supposed to be doing normal? That was your idea, remember?"

Hutch ignored him. "It could happen," he said.

"You just realized that?"

"No I didn't just realize that, I just... damnit, Starsky! He's twenty-seven, he's got no brain function... he's... if it was... I just..."

"Enough," Starsky said quietly. "You must be tired. Or maybe you dropped a dumb-bell on your head this morning? Will you quit it? I don't know about you, but I'm not planning on ending up in here. If that one unexpected circumstance happens, and someone fills me full of lead, then I'm going to go out in a blaze of glory, like Milo. You ain't going to be standing around looking at my green light going out."

Starsky gave a tight little nod, as if to say 'so there you have it,' before getting in behind the wheel. Hutch sighed, giving in to the no-way-out that was his partner's logic. He climbed into the car too, ferociously winding the window down.

_"All units, all units..."_

For a second Hutch glared at the radio, and then he gave in to that too.

_"All units in the vicinity of 17th and Main... we have reports of two jumpers on a roof... the Westline building, nine twenty-one 17th Street at Main..."_

"Two?" Hutch said in disbelief grabbing at the mic. "This is Zebra Three... we are at 14th... and responding."

_"Roger Zebra Three."_

"We're responding, right?" Hutch said as Starsky continued to drain the Coke. Starsky crumpled the can in one hand and flung it out of the window. It rattled the side of a trashcan and bounced in. He turned to grin at Hutch, but his partner was looking away again.

"Oh no," said Hutch as they rounded the corner and spun on to Main.

Up ahead of them, on the street below a dilapidated apartment building, a large circle of people were staring at the ground. His stomach ground itself into knots, his heart hammered anxiously against his ribs, and he fought the temptation to grab at the steering wheel and send them back the other way. Instead, he snatched up the radio.

"Despatch, this is Zebra Three... we need an ambulance at 17th and Main..." He paused for a second and then added, "And some back-up."

Starsky slewed them to a halt and was surprised at the speed with which his partner, so shaky a few minutes before, bounced out of the car and made for the group.

"OK, people, let us through... police officers..."

As the crowd parted, Hutch had to swallow down an instant desire to vomit. Starsky, coming up on his shoulder, stared at the scene before them and then looked upwards at the roof of the building. He turned his back on the two sprawled and seeping bodies.

"Alright, folks. If you're nothing to do with this please can you go home. If you can tell us something then we're listening."

"Starsky, your jacket," hissed Hutch, slapping him on the back of the shoulder.

"What?" Starsky half-turned, keeping his gaze averted.

"Give me your jacket," Hutch said, already starting to pull one of Starsky's sleeves.

Starksy wanted to wrestle him away. He wanted to get snippy about the rules and refuse the use of his clothing to cover up a dead body, but he did not. He let Hutch manhandle him out of the jacket, taking a look around the people that were not turning away or backing off. Then he looked behind him again. Hutch was in a half crouch by the now partially-covered bodies, hands on knees, seeking some control. Feeling Starsky's eyes on him he straightened up.

"Can anyone tell us who these people were and what happened?" he asked, and his voice was notched up to a high enough level that Starsky knew the control he sought was not forthcoming.

A small wave of muttering greeted this. Someone was softly sobbing.

"That there is Rodney and Ella-Mae Jackson," said an elderly black man coming forward a little way. "And they jumped off the roof together."

"They jumped... OK... and... you saw this?"

"They's up there about ten minutes, then they just held hands and jumped off."

"They lived in this building?"

"Apartment eleven. Second floor," said someone else. "They lived with their son. And their daughter lives in number seventeen."

"Why'd they jump?" Starsky said in a flat voice.

For a bit there was silence, then, as the sound of blaring sirens came advancing up the street from the opposite direction, everyone began to talk at once.

"They's happy enough this morning."

"He musta made her do it. Ella-Mae wouldn't never have jumped."

"I heard their boy'd been giving them trouble."

"And there was no-one else up there on the roof with them?" Hutch managed to get in.

"No, nobody."

"What about Brent?" a voice questioned. "Thought he went up to talk to 'em."

"No, I never saw him."

"He said he was going."

"Did anyone see Brent up there?"

Now they were all talking to each other and ignoring the policemen.

"This is beautiful," said Hutch. "Again we get here too late."

Starsky looked at him, incredulous. "Hey now," he said, soft but firm. "This one isn't our fault. If two batty old folks want to practice take-off from a rooftop, then that's their affair."

"We missed it by... what? A minute? Thirty seconds?"

"Oh right," Starsky said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. "I get it. My driving too sluggish for ya? Think we shoulda got here in time to run up ten flights of stairs and persuade them to join us for a cuppa coffee?"

"No, not you... I just mean... well, it's getting to be a habit," said Hutch.

Starsky was about to reply, and there was a dangerous flash in his eye, when a uniformed officer interrupted.

"Sergeant Hutchinson... what do you want us to do here?"

Hutch swiveled his head. He suddenly seemed to realize that events were moving along while he and Starsky were standing there carping at one another.

"Oh, I uh... yes. We need witness statements from these people here, Jimbo." He looked at the paramedics loading two covered gurneys into the back of an ambulance and then wandered over to the remaining knot of people who were gathered around the front steps of the Westline, flipping open his notebook as he did so. Even while he began asking questions he could see from the corner of his eye that Starsky had stomped over to where their two jackets were still lying and had stood there for some time as if mesmerized, eventually poking at them gingerly with his foot. After a few minutes he bent and picked them up. Tucking them under one arm he looked up again at the roof and then came to join his partner.

"What you got?"

"Sandra and Rodney Junior," Hutch said, and Starsky could see he had written very precise notes on the page. "Son and daughter. Got their numbers. Both out at work. Arnold Buck, owner of City Residential who lease the building. Dennis Dyer, the leasing manager. The janitor, Harman Brent. Neighbors... You want me to go on?"

Starsky gave him a long look, then blew his cheeks out. He thrust Hutch's jacket at him and then led the way silently towards the front door.

*

By around five, Starsky said he'd had a gutful of grieving relatives. The Jacksons' children were both sure their parents had not made a suicide pact, even though it had certainly looked like that to all the witnesses. Then there was Ella-Mae's best friend, with all her many theories, mostly to do with Rodney's peculiar behavior and malign spirits lurking in the Westline. No evidence could be gathered suggesting anyone else had been on the rooftop with them. They had not been the owners of a secret fortune or any life assurance. They were a well-known, well-liked couple in the scuzzy building that made up their little community, but neighbors seemed to be split as to whether Rodney could ever have made his wife do anything she didn't want to, or whether Ella-Mae was devoted enough to have followed him to the ends of the earth. Or off a roof.

Dobey was long gone, back to his suburban family weekend. The precinct was still buzzing, like it often was on a Saturday, but Starsky sat on his desk, balancing a pencil on his forefinger and said he'd had enough.

This was one of those dangling cases. It would go away of its own accord when nothing else came to light, to be dealt with by other agencies, or something new would pop up when they weren't looking.

"So go home," said Hutch, threading a sheet of paper into the typewriter.

"Whatcha doing?"

"I'm having a permanent wave, Starsky, what does it look like?" Hutch fussed with the angle of the paper, twiddling the knobs of the machine. "This is for Dobey's desk Monday morning. And it's OK. I'll do it. You go."

Starsky hesitated, twirling the pencil around in his fingers until he lost a grip and it sprang across the desk, clattering on to the keys of the typewriter. Hutch picked it up, snapped it in two and threw the two halves into the wastepaper bin. Starsky slid on to the floor.

Someone walking past the squadroom, pushed open the door and said, "Hey, you guys, any news on Butch?"

They both looked up, shocked to hear Cassidy's name when they had spent the last few hours trying not to think of him. Neither had garnered a reply when a voice from behind them said, "I think you're asking the wrong people, McNulty. What's it to them?"

A chair scraped back and Dan Simons walked past them to the door, grabbing his jacket from the coatstand on the way.

"Now wait just a minute--" Hutch began, out of his chair in a second, but his two steps towards the door were arrested by Starsky, who almost managed to get a proper look at him for the first time that day.

"Leave it," he said, frustrated that when Hutch dragged his stare from Dan Simons he made only the briefest of eye contact. The atmosphere in the precinct had made them both feel a touch sea-sick since they got back here just under an hour ago, and that was reflected in the cloudy blue. "We know how it looks."

"Yeah?" Hutch pulled away and slumped back in his chair. "How does it look?"

"I mean a lot of people heard that it was us that sent them off the other day. I guess they think we never shoulda done it."

"And do you think that?"

Starsky was poking about looking for another pencil but he couldn't find one. "I think I don't want to fight anyone about it." He glanced up, again catching his partner's eye. "And I mean anyone." This time it was him who looked away first, not wanting to see anything, and definitely not wanting to show anything. It was too hard at the moment. He gestured at the typewriter. "You really going to do that?"

Hutch nodded.

Starsky ran a hand down one side of his jaw and then the other, feeling for a beard. "You know that dinner we were going to have?"

"Yuh."

"Well, I didn't tell you... but I met this girl last night... and I think I..."

"That's fine. When I'm done here I'm going for a run."

Starsky raised his brows. "Are you sure that's a good idea? All you've had today is coffee."

"All the more reason to be healthy."

"OK then... I'll seeya..." Starsky paused, waiting for something. A question about the mysterious girl, perhaps. A query as to his plans for Sunday. But Hutch had turned his attention to the typewriter and was already tapping away.

Much later, sitting out back in the cooling evening air, his guitar resting on his lap, his head inclined back in the chair so he could see a glimpse of sky, Hutch strummed.

It was a luxury to strum uninterrupted and he had been doing it now for about half an hour, following a jog along the boardwalk, a sprint through the park, a shower and then a rather austerely healthy dinner. The routine had restored some equilibrium, and each new star he noticed restored a bit more. He shut his eyes and switched chords. He felt like if he could tune into music and stars tonight, and maybe do sunshine and sleep tomorrow, then he could arrive back in the squadroom on Monday with whatever was missing back in place.

Hutch gave his vocal chords a little test. They had been twisted up in the back of his throat most of the day.

"Maybelline..." he tried, "Won't you be true... oh... Maybelline... won't you be..."

The phone rang back in the main room of the apartment.

Hutch picked at the strings, trying to ignore it. He succeeded and the ringing stopped, but Maybelline had gone. The phone rang again.

Hutch took the guitar with him to answer it.

"Hello?"

"Hutch, it's Captain Dobey."

Captain Dobey. One day maybe they would call him Harold.

"Got word from the hospital," Dobey said, his voice soft on the end of the phone-line. "Tom Cassidy passed away an hour ago."

Dead then. The green light went out.

"OK," was all Hutch said.

"Starsky there with you?"

Hutch blinked in surprise. Healthy dinner. Uninterrupted strumming. Singing without comedy accompaniment.

"No, Cap, no he's not."

"Oh." Dobey sounded thrown off balance by this revelation. Then he said, "I'll call him at home."

"He won't be there," Hutch said. "He's got a date."

"Can I leave it you to let him know?"

"Sure. Whatever."

"And Hutch?"

"Here."

"Funeral's on Tuesday. Full dress. Would you... do you think you could handle doing another eulogy? Lizzie really appreciated what you said yesterday."

"She did?" Hutch's memory was of Lizzie Fenn, who had insisted on having a strictly civilian funeral, keeping her emotions under control with difficulty, of her letting he and Starsky offer condolences while she was clearly seeing nothing before her but the two men who had led her husband to his death. And staring at Hutch all the time he was speaking his words of dedication with ill-disguised disbelief on her face. "I don't know, Cap."

"You want to think about it?"

"No," Hutch said, his mind traveling along the line of the green blip. "But I think you should ask Starsky."

"You do? You think he could handle it?"

Well he's handled it up to now, Hutch thought. The hand moving the black hair across the forehead, instinctive and natural. 'Take it easy, Tommy.'

"Yeah, I think so, Cap. Try him."

"Well, OK then. Night, Hutch. See you next week."

"Night, Cap."

A click and a hum. Hutch replaced the phone. He took a step backwards and sat down heavily on the couch, drawing the guitar into his chest.

_Oh, Tommy..._

He felt the hot, watery film appear before his eyes.

If someone fills me full of lead... you ain't going to be standing around looking at my green light going out.

_Oh for fuck's sake, Starsky..._


	3. Jiving

**_A funeral; a eulogy; "a self-maintaining unit"; a murder; a spat; a cop's widow; iced tea and hamburgers; Starsky jives and Hutch dreams..._ **

 

On Tuesday, just after midday, Tom Cassidy's cortege was moving through the heat-haze, the sunlight flashing off the black and chrome of the hearse. All the way along to the steps leading up the open doors of St Emanuel's, Cooper's Hill, local people stood in silence, some not even sure why they were there, drawn first by the police motorcycles who had stopped all the traffic and then by the unexpected pomp of the passing parade.

The six pallbearers had not exchanged a single word beforehand about the route they would have to take up the thirty-two steps to the church doors. Taking the weight of the front corner of the casket on his left shoulder, Hutch was aware of a thundering ache in his temple as he glanced up at the first group of ten. He was also aware of his partner on the other corner, and the four honor guards behind. With all of them standing still, the casket felt strangely light. Perhaps he's not even in there, Hutch thought. Butch liked a good practical joke.

Nothing but coffee and straight sugar sped around his system, but he felt steady. Starsky, too, was standing steady. Now all they had to do was make it up top.

By the last ten steps Hutch had developed a shake in the casket-bearing shoulder. He could feel sweat running down from underneath the peak of his white cap and his back muscles wanted to go into spasm. For some stretched-out minutes they paused up on the top before the signal came to move into the cool interior. When they reached the altar the shoulder was trembling so much that he made an involuntary hissing sound.

"Easy," he vaguely heard from Starsky. As they laid the casket down a quick look to the side showed him the strain on his partner's face too. He attempted to send a silent message of support, but they were having trouble connecting. Instead he looked out across the rows of people. Up front were Tom's parents, pillars of the community, elders of the church. Their other three sons were sitting with them. Lizzie Fenn was there, too. And Captain Dobey with Edith. The Chief and his wife. Faces from the precinct. Faces from the short but productive life of Tom Cassidy.

Hutch had managed to avoid going into a trance while the priest was addressing the congregation, had floated a little while the hymns were being sung, and was just beginning to concentrate on the utter agony of his right big toe inside the shiny black leather shoes that he suspected were a half size too small, when he was brought back into himself by the sound of his partner's voice. It came at him from above, which was always bound to be disconcerting.

"My name is Sergeant David Starsky," said the voice. It was a voice full of determination but oddly empty of confidence. Hutch figured he was probably the only person here who realised how deep the man up in the pulpit was digging. "I'm here to speak on behalf of all the officers at Metropolitan," the voice went on and it occurred to Hutch that he had never even asked his partner what he intended to say, "...but I hope you don't mind if I speak particularly on behalf of one officer who can't be here today... Sergeant Milo Fenn, who counted Tommy as a partner in a million... and a friend out of the ordinary. Tom couldn't be there for Milo on Friday... and Milo can't be here... but I hope you'll forgive me kinda presuming I can speak for Milo, give a little bit of what I think he might have said himself..."

Hutch saw Lizzie Fenn lean her forehead into her gloved hand.

"Harold," said the Chief, coming to Captain Dobey prior to leaving the wake. He had spent his obligatory five minutes with Cassidy's parents, another two with Mrs. Fenn, and now needed to leave before the added tension of his presence overwhelmed the proceedings entirely. "Let me know if you need extra resources. We have the counselors. We have the cover."

Dobey nodded assent. At the moment he was not sure what was needed. There had continued to be a rather queasy atmosphere at Metro, and some unexpected sobbing when Fenn and Cassidy's unbolted lockers had been discovered down in the trash.

"Your boys did well," the Chief went on, waving a hand across the room. "They're a credit to you, Harold. I'm sure you're proud of the way they're handling themselves."

Dobey muttered something. He knew exactly to whom the Chief was referring. The blistering eulogy on the nature of partnership had caused his own head to swim, and he could only imagine what Hutchinson had felt about it. Which made their pointed dislocation all the more perplexing. At the moment Hutch was having an stilted conversation with Lizzie Fenn, and Starsky was sitting on a wall outside drinking beer with one of Cassidy's brothers. Once out from under the casket they had not been seen in the same orbit all day.

Give it time, Dobey told himself. He told Edith, too, because she wouldn't stop bringing it up, worrying over it all the way back home.

"They've decided to deal with it this way," he said.

"Well it won't work," Edith replied. "Who's going to tell them that?"

"They'll find it out," he said.

"I hope you're right, Harold. Don't let them go too far, though."

"Too far?"

"I remember Phil Porter... Michael Travis."

"Edith... that was years and years ago."

"That's as may be, Harold. Michael still went sleepwalking into a trap and Philip Porter still became a drunk and got thrown out of Metro... and it's not as if nobody saw it coming."

"Not the same," said her husband broodingly.

Edith tutted, in that way that Edith had.

*

It did not seem very long before a whole week, or even more, separated them from the rarefied atmosphere of Tom's funeral, and normal life, represented by a double shift which ended some time after the local restaurants closed. Returning home the passenger slid in and out of an uncomfortable sleep. One second he was drifting, the radio rocking him gently along, and the next second there was a sharp stop.

Hutch's chin slid off the back of his hand and hit his chest so fast it caused an audible crack right at the top of his spine.

"Home again, home again, jiggedy jig," he heard Starsky say. The engine was still running and he was looking across expectantly.

"You wanna come in?" Hutch said thickly, automatically. Because he had woken so suddenly he had fallen into the familiar.

"Nope, 'm busy."

"Busy? Busy doing what?"

"Hutch, ours is a unique relationship, but I don't gotta tell you everything."

"Who is she, Starsk?"

Starsky scratched at one of his sideburns. "She's a waitress."

"Do I know her?"

"No, you don't know her. I don't know her either."

"You mean in the Biblical sense?"

Starsky shook his head as if wondering why he was having this conversation. "In any sense. I only just met her. All I know is her name."

"So... this isn't the same girl you were out with last week?"

"And your point is?"

Hutch's hands went up. "No point. No point at all." He squinted at his watch. "She's waiting for you tonight?"

"OK... and this is the last thing, Hutch... yes, she's waiting for me tonight. I didn't tell her a time. Alright? I don't need to tell you where, do I? or what time I'll be home...?"

"Of course not. Have a good time. See you tomorrow... bright and early?"

"Don't worry... I'll be here."

"Wait a second... pick me up at the Gym will you?" Hutch sprang the door handle and half fell, half climbed out of the car.

"Horses for courses," Starsky said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Nothin'. Sleep well."

Hutch let the door go. The sudden revving of the engine ensured that it banged shut.

Horses for...? Where does he get these expressions from?

For some reason he continued to watch the Torino as it took off from the curb and sped away up the road. He watched until the tail-lights went out of sight.

In the car, Starsky's eyes flicked between the road and the rear-view mirror. Why is he still standing there? Is he alright?

Then he shook his right shoulder, a futile gesture to try and ease away some of the sensation that he had carried with him for days, that he could still feel the weight of Tom's casket.

Lola was a waitress. And she would wait. She would wait all night if necessary, that much she had made plain. Now it was Starsky's turn to consult his watch. The hands on the dial told him to forget it, to head back uptown to the always-surprising contents of his ice-box, and his bed. But he ignored them. He turned towards Huggy's place instead, figuring he had time for a beer there before hitting the Kettle of Fish on Third, where Lola always worked late.

*

_"Man, it's hot," Milo said. "You feeling OK?"_

_Tom, behind the wheel of the forest-green sedan, jutted out his jaw and blew upwards hard, dislodging a rogue clump of black hair which had been bobbing about in front of his eyes as he drove. "Feeling good, Sergeant," he said, and then grinned. "Never gonna get tired of saying that."_

_"You won't," Milo told him. "But I will."_

_"C'mon... it's been how long? Not even a month... and we're actually getting to do a real job."_

_"Yup. Did you see them? To say anything?"_

_"Bob Hope and Bing Crosby? No... they weren't around."_

_"Beers," said Milo firmly. "Later, we gotta buy them beers. They didn't have to talk us up to the Cap. We owe them."_

_"Sure we do... and they're going to owe us before the end of the day... for saving them the trouble of bringing in Duke King."_

_"No, no, no, Butch... seriously. You ever hear of any guys stand aside on a big bust like this for a couple of greenhorns? Bet nobody ever did it for them."_

_Tom Cassidy agreed. "Alright, so we'll buy them beers. We'll do a great job, and then buy them beers."_

_Fenn reached over and slapped him on the thigh. "Alright, buddy boy. We're here, let's make this one quick and clean. We can get in and out of there in half an hour if we stay on our toes."_

_Cassidy slowed the car to a halt. He blew at his hair again. "This is shaping up to be quite a day," he said as they got out and looked across the roof of the car at one another. A few seconds of silence passed between them. Fenn made the tiniest touch inside his jacket, got a fingertip to his holster. It was still strange not having it on his hip._

_"Ready?" he said. As they moved away from the car and came together on the kerb, he passed his hand briefly across Tom's back._

_"Lead on, Sergeant," said Tom, returning the touch as they stepped off the edge._

*

Tom Cassidy's head loomed over Starsky for a second. He got one eye open and saw Butch there, his hair flopping, his grin bright. Bringing his head off the pillow Starsky thought they might bang their foreheads together.

But he missed him.

Starsky sat up, letting the strange bedclothes slide off. There was nothing looming over him now but a sharp sense of not being at home. He looked to his right. Sprawled under the wrinkled sheets he could see someone from the waist up, face in the pillow.

"Lola?" he said, reaching out a hand.

"Gimme a break," mumbled a smoky voice. "It's Martine, you asshole."

Starsky withdrew the hand, and used it instead to rub over his eyes.

"Where'd Lola go?" he said, ill-advisedly.

The owner of the smoky voice rolled over, pulling the sheet with her. "Are you for real?"

Starsky swung his legs on to the floor and stumbled out of the sheets. "I think I better leave," he said.

"You gonna put your clothes on first?"

Starsky looked around. "OK, Martine, help me out here."

Martine, who had long red hair and freckles, plumped up the pillows behind her head. "You'll find them on back of the couch, if my memory serves me right. Although I got your watch here," and she leaned over and plucked it off the nightstand, waving it at him through the gloom. Starsky snatched it off her and put it on.

Sure enough, dotted about a couch in the adjoining room were his clothes. He reappeared in the bedroom doing up the buttons of his 501s. "Listen," he said, "I really gotta go. I'm sorry..." It seemed a poor choice of words and he winced in spite of himself.

But Martine just peered at him from under her bangs, apparently amused.

"It's been a pleasure," she said. "You're polite, you didn't break nothing. Just wish you'd remembered my name."

"Lola," said Starsky, plunging into his t-shirt.

"Martine, dummy."

"No, I know that... I mean... think I've blown it with Lola."

"Hey," Martine said. "I think you're right. Know what else?"

Starsky swung his holster over his shoulder. "What?"

"Think you've probably blown it with me too."

Starsky patted his jacket pocket, relieved to find his keys still there. "Well I'm in trouble all round then. Shoulda been somewhere else half an hour ago."

"What's her name?"

"Her name's Hutch," Starsky said.

"You're weird," Martine said, a little wistfully. "You're cute, but you're weird."

*

After a ten o'clock sighting of Hutchinson entering the building out the back of a cab Captain Dobey exited his office and hovered in the squadroom like a monitor on playground duty. Hutch, who had been confident of his ability to creep in unnoticed, was surprised by his superior barking out "I've been trying to raise you for about forty-five minutes!", apparently from a hiding-place behind a cabinet.

Mad at being caught, and mad enough at his partner to abandon his knee-jerk loyalty Hutch defended himself straight off.

"Starsky was a no-show, Cap."

"Well you need to get a hold of him and then get down to the morgue."

Since dark humor was not generally in Captain Dobey's line, Hutch reached into the void to try and interpret the order, but could come up with nothing. He sidled instead towards the coffee jug while Dobey watched him with folded arms.

"You been working out this morning, Hutchinson?"

Hutch splashed the black liquid into a mug. "Yes," he said, "but I don't think that's any reason to send me down to the morgue."

"You don't have to fill in as a smart-mouth just because Starsky's not here," Dobey told him. "Your janitor -- from the Westline -- Brent... found dead at the bottom of the stairwell early this morning. Pathology want to see you. Then I want you to begin re-investigating that suicide. There's something going on down there."

Hutch swilled the coffee around and then poured it down his throat. It was lukewarm, thick, full of grounds. But it successfully sent a welcome sweep of caffeine across his frontal lobes. Dobey was still watching him narrowly. Hutch took a little swing by the filing cabinet and rustled about looking for the file. When he found it and turned around, Dobey had retreated behind his door.

On the Captain's desk were the blue files, all four of them, that he had checked out of Personnel this morning. They sat there in alphabetical order left to right across his blotter. Cassidy, Thomas P.; Fenn, Milton. J.; Hutchinson, Kenneth R. L.; Starsky, David M. Two of the files were headed for the 'Deceased in the Line of Duty' drawer. Dobey had wanted to just read them through again before they disappeared into that strange black hole forever.

And as for the other two... 'some clarification from commanding officer required.' That was what he had been told... 'please indicate if on watching brief'. He scribbled something in duplicate and clipped one sheet inside each file to satisfy Personnel.

The press were satisfied, too -- for now. The story had interested them briefly, meriting some "Cop Duo Cut Down" headlines. Photographs had been printed side by side -- Cassidy with his hair in his eyes, Fenn sporting his unfashionable crew-cut, upright as a pair of poplars. Cassidy's funeral had made the local newssheet, because honor guards and flags always made for impressive copy. Maybe a crime correspondent or two had speculated briefly about Duke King. Then the pack had moved on.

The internal inquiry was just starting, but it didn't really make Dobey feel much better that the Chief had come out on his side.

"Harold, they all know... when they make that first step up... they have to have their eyes that bit wider open than they did in uniform. Cassidy and Fenn knew that as well as any other plainclothes officer on the street... and who is to say that any other team wouldn't have snagged the same problem?"

Any other team... Dobey stacked Cassidy and Fenn's files neatly together, moving them to his out tray. Then he put Hutch's file on top of Starsky's and moved them to a corner of the desk. Not finished with you two yet.

Dobey came back out of his office and found the squadroom was completely empty. Hutch's jacket was still on the chair, the coffee still on the desk. The Captain walked out into the corridor to check with the desk sergeant.

"Yes, Captain, Starsky came in a few moments ago. They're in the locker-room."

Dobey wandered along. Even from way outside the door he could hear raised voices. As he pushed inside he heard Starsky.

"I overslept, alright? I overslept!"

"Underslept more like," Hutch's voice responded, and his tone was belligerent. "I waited long enough." He was leaning against his own locker, watching Starsky changing his clothes.

"Yeah and so did I..." Starsky replied. "You never even left me a message -- what's that all about, huh?"

"Oh wake up will you, Starsky? I assumed you'd put two and two together."

"Since when did you turn into Teacher's Pet?" Starsky grumped, reaching for his jacket and dumping the clothes he'd been wearing last night inside the locker.

"Since you lost the keys to your own ignition," said Hutch flatly.

Starsky banged shut the door hard enough to make it shudder, and raked his hair. He was working up to a response, which looked like it might be something spectacular, but his brain was just too tired.

Dobey, still standing unnoticed by the door, could not quite pin down the dysfunction he saw playing itself out here.

Hutchinson, Kenneth R. L., and Starsky, David M. -- 'a self-maintaining unit. Neither Officer takes kindly to outside interference in the workings of the team.'

Any problem was a problem shared, a problem halved, and a problem dealt with strictly in private. Right now, the rest of the locker-room was regarding them in curious silence.

"Gentlemen," said Dobey. "Would you step into my office please?"

They followed him like a pair of sulky teenagers about to be grounded. Dobey stood in front of his desk so they would not spot their own paperwork, and then waited only for them to take up unaccustomed positions, Hutch against a filing cabinet, Starsky draped across a chair, before he said, "Will a week do it?"

"Well I think he's got us all wrong," Starsky said, breaking the silence as they drove east on Main. "We're completely normal, wouldn't you say?"

"Normal is as normal does," Hutch told him and Starsky laughed.

"That's what I just said."

"Starsky, I'm not sure telling Captain Dobey that he could take his week off and stick it in his ear counts as normal."

Starsky mulled it over a second and then made a face. "Oh I dunno. 'm sure I've said something like that to him before."

"Maybe you're right."

Starsky took a curious little peek sideways. His partner was closing him down again, like he had been doing for days now. He couldn't be sure if it was just that Hutch was still mad at him for not turning up at the Gym, or whether it was this whole strong, silent routine he'd adopted. Right now he was assiduously re-reading the pathology notes on Harman Brent, the Westline's janitor, which more or less gave the lie to the theory that he'd tripped up and fallen down some stairs. Something about the angle of one of the contusions on his head.

"Did he fall... or was he pushed?" Starsky did the TV voiceover, looking for another way in. Getting no response from his partner he yawned and shook himself a little to try and keep alert. Up ahead the Westline hove into view. He trailed Hutch by some distance going up the steps and in the door.

"What are we doing?" he demanded, catching up with him in the dank hallway.

"Going to talk to that guy who said Brent might have been up on the roof the other day," Hutch said, producing his notebook and flipping it open. He tapped the relevant page. "I got it right here."

"You're like a proper detective," Starsky commented. He looked gloomily at the stairwell. "Don't tell me... he lives on the top floor."

"Joseph Biddle, Apartment 901. I'm not going to carry you."

"Just tell me when we've arrived," said Starsky.

Biddle told them he saw nothing. He just heard Brent say that he'd seen the Jacksons going up the roof-stairs and they had an argument about it because residents were not allowed up there. Brent argued with everyone about everything, it seemed, and no-one was altogether sorry he was now gone. When told that the major head trauma the janitor suffered had been from a blunt instrument and not from impact on the stairs, Biddle shook his head, fatalistic.

"He shouldn't have left the roof-door open if he didn't want residents going up there," he said meaningfully.

"Is it open now?" Hutch asked.

Biddle shrugged. "You can never tell."

"I'm tired of this case," Starsky moaned as they made their way up the last stairs to see. He watched Hutch push at the roof-door. It opened stiffly and a swathe of warm air blew in at them. "What we going out here for? We've done this bit already."

Hutch stepped out on to the flat roof and his partner followed, albeit unwillingly.

"OK, are there cogs turning in there?" Starsky asked, lightly cuffing Hutch on the back of the head, "or you just out here for some fresh air?"

Hutch ducked away from the touch. "I don't know," he said. "Didn't get a feel the other day."

Starsky slumped down on top of a concrete slab and stretched his feet out on a metal grille. "Go feel," he said.

Hutch wandered off on a little perambulation of the roof, walking the perimeter. Starsky let his eyes drift shut. The breeze up here was a welcome respite. He had almost fallen into a doze when Hutch's voice said, "Could you do it?"

He opened his eyes to see Hutch standing close by the little rail that ran around the roof.

"Do what?"

"Make the leap?"

Starsky hauled himself to his feet and walked carefully over. He peered over next to Hutch and then took a step back, dizzy. "No way," he said.

"Haven't you ever wondered though, Starsky? How far you'd go, for someone you loved? If that someone asked you to do it?"

Starsky put a hand to his stomach. He felt nauseous.

"There's nobody..." he said, firm as he could.

"The other day, Starsky... when you stood up at Tom's funeral... you said that stuff about being willing to put all your trust in someone, about being able to take a leap with your eyes closed if that someone told you to do it."

"Yeah, but that was about..."

"I know what it was about."

"Oh OK then -- you going to ask me to jump off with you? Because if you are..."

Hutch took a last look over. "It's not so different," he said.

"What's not so different? Would you hurry up, Hutch, I'm about to lose it here."

"We do it all the time," Hutch said, coming nearer and getting a close look in his partner's eyes. It seemed a strangely long time since he had last done so. He shook his head at what he saw and touched a hand on Starsky's ribs. "We ask each other to step off the edge all the time."

Starsky indulged in the eye contact, but the gun-metal intensity he was looking into just made him feel more queasy. You may be right, his own expression said, but I won't talk about it right now and you can't make me. So Hutch let his hand drop. While Starsky headed back towards the roof-door, he remained where he was, knowing that something was going wrong, but almost rooted to the floor by his inability to do anything about it.

"There's someone waiting to see you guys," said o'Riordan on the desk when they got back.

Hutch took a few paces and squinted through the glass into the squadroom.

"Lizzie Fenn," he said in a whisper.

"You deal with it, huh?" Starsky appealed. "I have to go sit down somewhere."

"Burning the candle both ends, Starsky?" asked o'Riordan.

"Burning out," Starsky told him.

Hutch let him go. He was worse than useless in this state. Then he gathered himself and walked into the squadroom to where Milo's widow was sitting in Starsky's chair, smoking. She looked up as he approached. When Hutch put out a hand to greet her, she hesitated just a second before stubbing out the cigarette and extending her own.

"Lizzie, good to see you," he said.

She was dressed in a suit, suggesting she was back at work. Her brown bob was shiny, newly coiffured.

"I thought I'd take half an hour to come and get Milo's things," she said.

"Sure, I'll take you along."

Lizzie picked up her bag and followed him back out into the corridor. She walked with an aura around her, an aura of dignity, as if she were holding in her real desire to fall down in a heap and wail. Hutch held open a door and she passed him with a murmured "thank you."

Inside, on a table, were two cardboard boxes. Someone had scrawled on them in black letters: "CASSIDY" on one. "FENN" on the other. Hutch shut the door behind them. Mrs Fenn walked over and pulled one of the boxes towards her.

"Do you mind if I...?"

"Go ahead," said Hutch, and moved over to pretend he was looking out of the window and ignoring her.

He could hear her going through the box, taking out items and putting them on the table. She was silent for a long time. Then she said, "This is so strange... I didn't even know he had half of this."

"No?" Hutch turned around.

She had on the table before her Milo's shield, a pile of certificates and bits of paper, some of which bore Milo's handwriting, a well-thumbed notebook and stub of pencil, three watches, some neckchains, half a bottle of cologne, two pairs of dark glasses, one of which was crushed, photographs, a pair of shoes, a towel with a university logo on, a bottle-opener, a calendar covered in doodles and a book in an ancient red leather cover.

"It's all yours, Lizzie," said Hutch. "You need me to carry it down for you?"

Lizzie showed him that she had picked up one of the watches. Its face was cracked.

"He was wearing this one the day he... it's broken." Carefully she put it back in the box. "The glasses too. Bet they were in his pocket. He probably fell on them." She picked up the chains, looked closely at them and shook her head. She looked inside the front cover of the book and then pushed it away from her. Finally she picked up the shield and held it in her hands for a while, studying it.

"I don't want any of it," she said at last.

Hutch was shocked. "Not the photos?"

"No, not any of it. It... it all reeks of... I don't want it."

"You might change your mind," he said.

"I don't think so. Here, you can have this." And she passed him the shield. "Don't think I'm not proud of my husband, Hutch, because I am. I just don't need those reminders of him. You can have the book, too. He'd want you to."

"Lizzie, I..."

"Don't," she said. There was no dislike in her face exactly, but an expression that told Hutch of the distance she wanted to keep. Methodically, she gathered up all the other items and placed them back in the box, closing the lid at the end. Then she moved across to the door, where she paused. "Milo thought a great deal of you, Hutch. No... that's wrong... he... really liked you. Respected you. So... you do what you want with the stuff, OK? And, Hutch..."

"Yeah?"

"For his sake, don't let it be you or your partner next."

Hutch was still dealing with the unpleasant lurch that her remark caused in his midriff when she had gone through the door and disappeared. He heard a couple of her heeled steps clacking down the corridor. They sounded swift, anxious to be away. He looked at the police badge in his hand. Most families regarded this piece of metal as akin to a living remnant of their lost one. He put it on top of the red book and carried them out of the room.

Starsky was sitting on his desk with his feet on the chair when he spied Hutch coming back in.

"How'd it go?"

"Lousy," said Hutch. "She didn't want to take any of it."

"She...? Really? What you got there?"

Hutch showed him and his partner whistled silently. "Not even the badge, huh?" He cleared his throat. "Well you know... if it comes to it..."

"Will you just shut up?"

Starsky stiffened in surprise. "Take it easy. I was just saying."

"Well don't."

"And the book?"

"Walt Whitman," said Hutch, leafing through it. "And before you say it, Starsky. Don't worry... I'd find a good home for your comics."

Starsky let the barb bounce off him, but he was tired enough to feel aggrieved at being targeted. When the phone rang right next to him he ignored it, instead propelling himself off the desk and towards the coffee jug, making Hutch have to lean over to get the call.

"Hutchinson... yeah, Huggy... what you got? Yeah? OK... ten minutes." He grabbed his jacket and snapped his fingers at Starsky's back. "Come on, Huggy wants to meet. He's got something on the Westline... Starsky, quit lollygagging and come on!"

Starsky looked at the cup in his hand, then slapped it down on his desk so that a tidal wave of coffee broke over everything on it. Hutch was through the door already.

*

"We've got two suicides and a murder here, Huggy, or maybe even three murders," said Hutch, studying his partner's profile as he stared with utter disinterest across the grass. They were sitting under a canopy taking on iced tea and hamburgers. "And we don't have time to go after Duke King until we get this one wrapped up."

"Well look," said Huggy, "Anyone could give you half a dozen names of people who mighta wanted to send Harman Brent head over heels... but there's been whispers about the Westline for weeks now."

"What kind of whispers?"

"That it's a useful place to go if you want to buy yourself a un-registered piece, or a blade, you get my drift? To pick up some shit... or to dump some."

"What, are we talking some kind of one-stop crime shop here?"

"If you like."

"And was Brent in on this?"

"Maybe, maybe not."

Hutch stuffed the last of his bun in his mouth, chewed for a bit, then washed it down in a lump with his iced tea. "How far does this go? Further than Brent? The manager? The owner?"

"Hey, you're the crime department," said Huggy resentfully. "I'm just the whispers department."

Hutch stood up, brushing crumbs off his lap. "OK, Starsky, let's go..."

"Is this going to take long?" said Starsky. "I have someplace else to be."

Just for a small second Hutch gave him the benefit of the doubt. He left enough time for his partner to row back, claim it as a joke, offer his support, however unwillingly. But it was clearly a wasted small second. Starsky did not move a muscle.

"Will you get it together!" Hutch yelled at him, slamming the flat of his hand down on the table so that Huggy, Starsky and the plastic trays all jumped. He had not planned to yell, but somehow it just found its way out there.

Starsky dug in his pocket. "You drive," he said, throwing the keys, hard. Hutch snatched them out of the air by his cheek. He gave Starsky the look that normally accompanied his rising forefinger.

Huggy flicked his eyes back and forth, his lips jutted out like he was sucking through a drinking-straw. Hutch strode away to the Torino, leaving Starsky to fold his arms delicately down on the table-top.

"That's what too many hours on the punch-bag will do for ya," he said.

"Yeah? What's your excuse?"

Starsky pushed himself up from the table. "Too many hours on... oh well, you don't know her," he said. "Later, Hug, huh? Maybe drop in for a beer."

"Are you going to bring your partner? Double my pleasure?"

"He'll doubtless be too busy pounding the beat," said Starsky.

Huggy let him take a few steps away before he called out, a little angry, "How come I'm paying?"

"Put it on the tab!" Starsky called back. He was walking slowly to the Torino, while Hutch revved the engine. It took quite a bit of effort to appear this casual.

Getting down to the car he poked his head through the open passenger window. "Before I get in," he said, "I just want to ask... what did you mean... that I lost the keys to my own ignition?"

"Work it out," Hutch snapped. "You're the driving department."

*

Definitely something going on at the Westline building.

Definitely.

After leaving Hutch again at his desk, crossing-checking a bunch of stuff to do with the case, Starsky drove towards home. They'd established that Harman Brent had been an ex-con with a record as long as your arm, and that City Residential, who owned the block, were not in the mood to talk about it. They had established an official regret for the accident, and for the earlier suicide, and then had been politely asked to produce something more substantial in the way of charges or else leave.

Frankly, the whole thing made Starsky yawn.

About a mile from home, he turned the Torino around and found himself heading towards the steadily-increasing lights of downtown, which were blinking on one by one as dusk approached. It had been his stated plan to head home for a quiet night recovering from the last few bruising ones, but all of a sudden he was thinking of something else.

When he rang the doorbell at the blue paint job on Chapman he was not really expecting a reply, but the door opened after about ten seconds, and Martine was standing there with a towel on her head, wrapped up in a robe that looked like it belonged to her father.

"Hey!" she said, her face lighting up.

"Hey," said Starsky a little limply.

"You've come to see me!"

"Well, I uh... yeah, I've come to see you."

"Come on in," said Martine opening wide the door. "This is a social call, right? You're not here to read me my rights?"

"Purely social," Starsky said as he wandered in.

"Well sit down!" she told him as he remained standing.

"The thing is..."

"You're not staying?"

"Well... I was on my way home and I just thought... well I wanted to... hell, Martine... I just wanted to tell you that the other night... thing... well, it isn't really my usual style. Just wanted you to know that."

Martine regarded him with interest. "That it?" she said. "That the speech?"

He nodded.

"Well I figured it," she said. "You want a drink?"

"On my way home," he repeated.

"OK. Listen, I'm headed to work, but I'm thinking of having a little party here tomorrow night... you want to come?"

"I thought I'd blown it," Starsky said. He looked around the cluttered but comfortable interior, with its air of being a place where parties often started for no reason at all.

"Yeah... well, you don't even have to be my date. Just come as my new policeman buddy."

Starsky laughed. "I could do that."

"OK then."

He went towards the door, which Martine had gone over to open. When she suddenly closed it before he got there he was not entirely surprised. She had pulled the towel off her head.

"Not due at work 'til nine," she said.

"Coincidentally," Starsky replied, "I'm not due at home at all."

*

Hutch was running.

Running in response to the bad feeling in his gut. His feet pounded along the asphalt, he felt the perspiration sliding down his spine. Had to get there. Had to get there quick.

Gunfire. That sound. That sound coming from thirty seconds away... Starsky was not here... it meant that he was there, and that sound was coming from where he was.

Thirty seconds. Thirty steps. And still not getting there.

The longest road, the longest alley, the longest stretch of blank concrete, cut up by wispy weeds and rusted pipes.

All he found when he got there was a green blip, travelling coldly along a straight line. The concrete was empty. The bed was empty.

"He's already gone," said a nurse appearing at his shoulder. "You're too late. He's already gone."


	4. Diving

**_Overtime; Milo's badge; Captain of Police at the Pits; cracks in the foundation; strawberry yoghurt and valium; Hutch has nightmares and Starsky drops out..._ **

 

The potent mix of caffeine and post-exercise lactic acid seemed to be keeping Hutch keen, and he had immersed himself in the plight of the Jacksons, feeling wretched about things he couldn't help, like he was prone to do. He had led the way to the offices of City Residential with a gleam in his eye and fire in his belly, and he now sat in the squadroom with his work-rate on the kind of trajectory that, had his partner not been so willfully disengaged, would have seriously worried him.

Dobey, hat in hand, passed him on the way out.

"Listen, Hutchinson, I've just been shouted at by my wife for still being in the office at this hour... what are you still doing here?"

Hutch was not beyond feeling amused by the irony of Dobey being cross because he was there rather than that he was not.

"Just thinking about this Westline case, Cap."

"Thinking what?"

"Thinking maybe we should sit on the doorstep and see if we can firm up these whispers of Huggy's."

"And what does your partner think of this plan?"

"Oh I'm sure when he comes round he'll be all in favor." Hutch opened his desk drawer to find his wallet and saw Fenn's badge. "How's the investigation going into the shooting, Cap?"

Dobey grunted. "Funny, everyone wants to know about that. Well, we've got every available officer working on it. The Chief wants a clean, textbook investigation -- start from scratch, by the book, in the open. Grace under pressure, that's the watchword."

Hutch reflected that the watchword summed up the Captain rather nicely.

"King's whole outfit's gone to ground," Dobey continued. "Whoever it was that tipped them off that day... whoever it was who walked those boys into an ambush... well, it was someone whose identity they'd kept to themselves..." He leaned a case full of papers down on the desk. "They were working your system."

"Our system?" Hutch asked, even though he did not want it confirmed to him.

"You know... only trust your partner. Keep it that simple, that pared down. It can be a good system," said Dobey. There was no blame in his voice. He just stated the fact. "They worked it, like they'd seen you and Starsky work it. But it's not helping us now." He hiked the case of papers under one arm, twirled his hat and made for the squadroom door. "Get yourself home, Hutchinson. You need to get some rest. And never mind about Starsky. He's just letting off steam. You're the one I'm worried about."

"I don't mind about Starsky," Hutch said, a little too quickly.

"Hmph," came back before the squadroom door banged shut.

Hutch put his jacket on and tucked his wallet and Fenn's badge into the inside pocket. The metal thumped gently against his breastbone as he walked out of the squadroom in the Captain's wake. He had no idea what he was going to do with it. He just knew he had to have it with him, and when he got to bed it was still on his mind as he fell into one of his jerky, coffee-soaked sleeps.

*

Hutch was banging.

Banging on the window with both his hands. His palms were stinging from the impact. No-one on the other side was reacting. No-one turned around.

Had to stop them. Had to get him out.

Increasingly desperate Hutch began to yell as he banged. "Don't turn it off! Don't turn it off!"

Behind him the nurse appeared again. "He's gone," she said.

On the other side of the glass someone finally turned around and showed him. Showed him the lazy green blip bouncing once or twice and then fading, showed him a hand moving dark hair off a familiar forehead.

"How's Milo?" croaked a voice in his ear. "Tell me... tell me... how's Milo?"

Hutch glanced at the haggard face at his shoulder, and began to tug at the shield in his inside pocket. He dragged it out and held it up but it did not belong to Milo. Hutch felt a sensation of utter panic, a realization that it was not Cassidy dying behind the glass, but someone else.

*

"Hey, Huggy, guy at the bar says he wants a word."

Huggy Bear looked at the wires dangling in his hand. He was tempted to take a kick at the goddamned pinball machine, see if that set it going again. Unlikely, though, with all the electrics he had here in his palm. As for a guy at the bar wanting a word... When was there not a guy at the bar wanting a word?

Huggy turned away from his corner and peered across the room.

"That's no guy," he said to Diane.

"Really, Huggy," she insisted, "He says he needs to speak to you."

"That's Captain Marvel," Huggy corrected her, beginning a lolloping walk across the floor to where a large man in a raincoat, with a hat in one hand, was standing. When he got there he saluted in slow motion.

"Mr. Captain, Sir... what can I do you for?"

Captain Dobey put his hat down on the bar. "Just a word," he said.

"Well let me furnish you with a welcoming beverage. This is a special occasion, after all." He looked him up and down. "And... hmmm... tut-tut, looks like rain."

"Nothing, Huggy," said the Captain.

Huggy sidled behind the bar and stood there waiting.

"Have you seen Starsky and Hutchinson?"

The question he had been preparing for. "Since when?"

"It doesn't matter since when. I just want to know if you've seen them."

"In here?"

"Of course in here, Huggy!"

Huggy bit his lower lip to keep himself quiet for a second. Probably the Cap was unaware of the frequency of their meetings.

"Well they've been here," he said at last, the pleasant fug of those funny cigarettes from earlier in the day not obscuring his sense that his loyalty was being stretched in two directions at once. "But not together. They do relay drinking these days... Hutch came in late afternoon two days ago and Starsky was here last night."

"Right." Dobey tried a casual lean on the bar. "And how do they seem to you?"

"Captain, they are a ship adrift in stormy waters... they are a canoe without a paddle... they are..."

"That's enough analogies, Huggy."

Huggy smiled beatifically. Dobey reflected that he had chosen a bad time to come and quiz him. Or maybe any time was bad.

"I understand that you want to protect them, Huggy -- and maybe I'm way out of line -- but I need to get a feel for where they're at right now."

"Captain, like I said... a leaky, drifting vessel. Needs the holes plugged up."

A large group barged into the space next to Dobey, attracting Diane's attention by shouting at her. Huggy moved down the bar and Dobey followed him, his hand sliding his hat along the polished surface.

"All I know, Cap," Huggy continued, forgetting that Dobey did not care for him being too familiar. "Is that they're both eating themselves up about those two cops that got killed... and it wouldn't be a problem Hutch working like a man possessed, or Starsky partying like there was going to be no tomorrow... it wouldn't be a problem if they were looking out for each other. But they're not, which ain't normal. You wouldn't want it to become permanent, know what I'm saying?"

"I know, Huggy, and I appreciate it."

Huggy popped his eyes in surprise. Captain Dobey appreciated it! Captain Dobey appreciated him.

"It's fine recognizing it," Dobey went on, half to himself, "but it's another matter dealing with it."

"I just pour the beers, Captain," Huggy said.

"Well, you keep doing that, Huggy. It's my responsibility to know what's going on and to try and address it, but your... erm, your input is very valuable."

Huggy gyrated in pleasure at the use of the word "input". Why, it was almost like a real business meeting. He extended his knuckles over the bar and Captain Dobey punched them almost without thinking. Then he jammed his hat back on his head and walked out, aware that Edith was going to be less than impressed with him coming home late smelling like a bar.

*

 _"Oh yeah, and the weather really is breaking tonight,"_ said the DJ just before the jingles. _"I know we've said it before, but it's really happening this time. It's gonna be a stormy one, folks. Time to batten down the hatches."_

Hutch looked through the window at the sky hanging over the Westline, shades of olive and sand. "The hatches," he said. "Time to batten 'em down."

"By my reckoning, that means a big, fat nothing is going to happen over there -- for the fourth night in a row," Starsky said from behind him.

"How do you reckon that?"

"Who's going to come out looking for a knock-off in the pouring rain?"

"Well I don't know. Might be the ideal cover."

"This has gotta be about the lousiest idea you've ever had," Starsky said. "And let's face it, you've had some pretty lousy ones."

"Yeah well, you know... I'm beginning to get tired of reminding you why you get up every day and put your badge in your pocket."

"Indulge me again."

"Listen, partner, if you don't want to do this job anymore, you'd better tell me now."

"Let's not fight," Starsky said, and Hutch was reminded forcibly of Vanessa. She would always -- but _always_ \-- say "let's not fight" when she was really spoiling for it. He had the tiniest suspicion that Starsky knew that perfectly well.

Hutch lifted the binoculars again to survey the building across the street. He heard the springs of the bed creak and the rustle of Starsky picking up his paper. By the law of averages (which was not a law that he entirely trusted) surely something had to happen over there soon. Huggy was not in the habit of feeding them bum information, and more and more Hutch wanted to know exactly what had placed the Jacksons hand in hand on the edge of that rooftop, but he seemed to be alone in that. Starsky, since they'd set up evening surveillance from the Beaumont Hotel, had been little more than a passenger, although he had been willing to always bring a flask.

The binoculars strayed up to the rail. A burst of static broke across the excitable chatter still coming from the transistor

Hutch reached over and switched it off. The movement caused a little burning sensation above his eyebrows. "You got anymore coffee in that thing of yours?" he asked.

A distinct snort of disapproval came from the bed. "You're already speeding fit to break the limit," Starsky said, and his voice was muffled. "I don't know how you sleep at night."

"I don't know _where_ you sleep at night," Hutch bit back. He turned around to watch the retreat, and sure enough, Starsky had the paper over his face, his legs crossed at the ankle, his hands behind his head, pointedly checking out. At any other time it might have been amusing. An annoyingly familiar sight that might have occasioned an inward sigh and a corresponding surge of affection. This evening, though, Hutch wanted to go over and shake him by the throat and he wasn't even sure why. Maybe because he was right. Hutch could feel the fine tremor in his hands. His eyeballs felt peeled, his mouth was arid and there was a neat little fireball at the top of his stomach.

I'm wide awake. At least I'm wide awake. Ready for it when it comes.

He spun round to the window again, once more lifting the binoculars to his eyes.

Starsky told himself that in ten minutes he would find some reserves of energy and reason, get up and show willing, prove he was still ticking over. Ten minutes was just enough to feed this desire to switch off from the world for a while, just enough to let himself drift. His face felt pleasantly warm under the newspaper. He heard Hutch shuffling his feet over at the window, and the clink of one bottle of beer against another as he fell into a doze.

*

"You know, the thing about Milo," Tom Cassidy said, taking the bottle nearest him, the one between Starsky's outstretched second and third fingers, "is that everything goes on under the surface, loads of different stuff you can't see, but you kinda know it's all good stuff."

"Sure, but what the hell does he see in you?"

Down at the water's edge Milo had tried to tackle Hutch for the tennis ball. They heard his howl of defeat as Hutch turned him, scooping the ball up on his toes, into the air, off his chest and a volley into the sea.

"Don't tell me, he played for the college soccer team," Cassidy said. As usual, he liked to observe as his partner ran around.

"Hutch? He played in every team going."

"Figures."

Starsky glanced at the jet-haired beanpole across the table from him. "You haven't got an inferiority complex now, have you?" He drank from his bottle, giving Cassidy time to reply.

"I could have... but I'm not the type." And Cassidy grinned. "'Sides, it's like you guys. I'm the power behind the throne." He looked at Starsky, that square look, showing it all, hiding none of his thoughts. "It works, right? Don't know how, but it sure works." He looked across the sand again, and began to half get to his feet. "The trick is..." He trailed off, suddenly concentrating.

"The trick is?" Starsky prompted.

"The trick is... to know when you have to watch and listen... when you have to hand him your miserable life to take care of... and when you have to get in there and cover... his.... sloppy... ass... hey, Milo!"

Down at the shore Milo looked up, the rosy light on his face. "Don't just sit there, Butch, come and help me deal with this guy!"

Cassidy was already haring across the sand. Starsky swung his legs up on the bench. His eyes were on Hutch, dribbling the sopping tennis ball in provocative circles around a winded Fenn. Fleet of foot, light of heart. And any second now... he was going to...

*

"Starsky, will you get up!"

_Nah, you leave me alone. I'm the beer-swilling crowd... I'm watching and listening..._

The warm newspaper was whipped off his face.

"Come look at this! Starsk... get up, will you?"

"Wha-?"

"Look at this!" Hutch was brandishing the binoculars at him. Starsky tipped himself sideways off the bed and stumbled to the window. He got the lenses to his eyes and tried to focus quickly, blinking away the mist.

OK, OK, got it. Two guys on the steps. Yup, they're going in. Maybe they live there...

"The guy at the back... recognize him?"

Starsky consciously shifted up a gear. "Isn't that... that's a Franks. Is that Charlie Franks, or is it Lou...?"

"I'd say it's Lou, but either way, we want him," Hutch said. "You saw the residents list, Starsk. He isn't on his way home. He's on his way to look for trouble. Isn't he just the type who'd drop in to find himself a nasty piece of hardware on the sly?"

"What we gonna do?" Starsky asked as they got to the stairwell of the Beaumont and began down it, Hutch in the lead. "Ring every doorbell?"

Hutch barked out a laugh, gaining four or five stairs on his partner. "You forgotten how to find trouble, Starsky?"

Out on the street the rain was just starting to fall. It was thick and steady, not yet the teeming curtain that it was going to become, but enough to elicit a curse from Starsky. He let a car get between him and Hutch.

"Tell me... what we're doing, partner," Starsky puffed out, putting on a sprint to catch up with him in the lobby of the Westline. Hutch snapped a finger to his lips and Starsky dropped his voice to a hoarse whisper. "Am I handing you my miserable life to take care of here?"

Hutch swiveled his slick head to look at him. "I don't know," he said, "Do you usually?"

Starsky wiped rain out of his eyes. "Lou Franks and a pal. Take a guess, Sherlock. What is it about this place? Is it the janitor's office, or is it...?"

"The roof," Hutch mouthed at him. He was at the bottom of the stairs, back against the wall. Starsky moved over to join him, holding his breath. They could hear the muffled sound of several pairs of feet padding up the stairs a long way above. Hutch already had his magnum out of the holster, and the sinews of his hand were showing up he was gripping it so tightly. Starsky's felt his gut convulse. He didn't trust Hutch not to fire at a shadow right now, and not trusting Hutch made him sick to the stomach.

*

Two a.m. and raining fit to bust.

Huggy Bear was on the verge of closing up The Pits for the night. Still muggy, but wet as a monsoon. Diane and Kim had hobbled off to get their cabs. Tigger and J.D. were still banging about in the kitchens but they'd be on their way out the back soon. Huggy pored over the cash register. Nights like these he wished he still lived over the joint like he used to.

He was in pencil-sucking mode, just planning to go over and bolt the front door when it banged open, setting his heart racing.

Two figures, soaked through, were pelting down the steps into the bar and Huggy hitched an eyebrow.

They were pale, both of them. And it sure wasn't the rain that had scared them. Huggy slammed the drawer shut and came out from behind the bar.

"Can I help you?"

At the bottom of the steps they were standing as if they were both wondering how they had got there and what to do next. Huggy walked over, passed them and pattered up the steps to bolt the door. He didn't want any more flotsam and jetsam falling down in here tonight.

"Bar's closed," he said as he came back down.

"Coffee?" Hutch asked in a croak and Starsky made an impatient noise.

"You just came here for coffee?"

"We just came here," Hutch admitted, glancing at Starsky and then whipping his glance away again. He paced a little, snapping his fingers.

"Till's closed," said Huggy firmly. "But as it's you, you can have a beer, on the house."

He was surprised when they both shook their heads and wary of the ensuing silence. "OK, so you're needing something else. Some last-minute information that can't wait until tomorrow morning, some morsel from the street that only I can provide?"

"We kinda forgot it was so late," Starsky said.

"You forgot..."

"I was thinking about a beer, a while back... we just came from the Westline, Huggy. Had a bit of a bust-up with Lou Franks."

"A bust-up?" queried Huggy. "What, you busted him?"

"More like he busted us," Hutch said, sourly.

"You alright?"

"Yeah we're alright. Went up ten floors, played the Keystone cops, got shot at in the dark, and came down ten floors. A fine night's work wouldn't you say, Starsky?"

"Might have ended differently if you hadn't gone up there waving that thing like shootout at the OK Corral," Starsky replied at once, sending the cooling atmosphere careering down towards zero.

Hutch's pacing took him nearer. "Well that's fine, partner. But you're the one who got the lock on his gun... which happens on those flashy little things when you're too sauced to keep 'em clean. OK, as long as someone's watching your back... You're welcome, by the way." Hutch glared at Huggy. "You were right about that place. There's something stashed up there and Lou Franks was looking for it." He shook some rain out of his hair.

"You're not here to tell me about the Westline, or what Lou Franks was looking for," said Huggy. "Seems like you're here for something else."

"I thought I was going to have a beer," Starsky said again, uncomfortable in his own skin all of a sudden. "But Hutch wants to bug me about something. I can tell. He wants to bug me about something that he wouldn't bug me about in the car."

"I don't want to bug you," Hutch said. "But, if you want to know... if you want to know..."

Huggy held his head.

Starsky feigned disinterest, but he had pushed himself upright, moving forward to meet Hutch in that space between the pool table and the bar where there was nothing in the way.

"Well go on then... yeah, I want to know. You're flapping like a fish on a hook... give it to me."

"Simple," said Hutch. "Up on the roof back there... we're ten floors up, rain coming down, and two armed felons somewhere in the dark... and let me tell you... you were so far from working with me, Starsky... so far... that now I'm thinking...well... when it comes down to it, I'd rather not step off the edge anymore with someone who needs a toothpick for each eyeball."

Starsky laughed, humorless. "How about someone who lives on coffee and pumping iron? Yeah? That'll work for ups. Someone you think might blow his own face off -- or mine -- every time he draws his gun? And that'd sure work for downs."

That one got Hutch by the throat and it was he who crossed the line, broke out of his pace and lifted his hands. Starsky's head jerked back in self-defense, but the punch never came and all he got was a shove in the chest. Enough to send him backwards, though, nearly a stumble. He came out of it with some momentum, poised to charge, one fist balled, ready for a strike. Huggy jumped to get himself between them. He had never done such a thing before -- had never had to, and would never have liked his chances -- but he felt angry enough to do it now.

"Know what?" he said, his voice pitched high, "Know what?"

"What?" said Hutch, his eyes still on his partner.

"Both of you... you listen to me... c'n hear the glitch in your engine, compadres -- and it don't sound good... Any punches fly in here, I'm calling the cops."

That repressed fire was burning in back of Starsky's eyes. The kind of thing you had to put out quick before it caught the fuse and blew up all over you. Hutch was biting his teeth together, a muscle jumping in his jaw. He was the one who had made the contact. Huggy thought he was lucky not to be on his back with a fat lip. Plenty of times he'd seen the blond one move in to smother the flame. The flat of his hand bang center of the chest was normally enough to do it, to post a warning. Perhaps a light touch right under Starsky's heart to show support as well. He'd never seen Hutch use that touch on his partner to signal aggression. It blew Huggy's mind.

"You need to straighten up and fly right, you hear me?" he said. "Else you're going to crash and burn. What?" he went on, seeing that they were still staring at one another in a way he did not care for at all. "You forget everything? All those bad guys out there that want to blow you away...? And as good cops as you are, you can't know all the cards they got, just like your two friends didn't know. You gone and forgot that all you can ever do is keep the odds stacked in your favor?"

Hutch had taken a step back. He felt a little giddy. When he blew -- which was rare enough -- there was generally only one person who could put the lid back on, and it wasn't Huggy Bear. Starsky took the cue, moving a pace or two away and turning, his arms folded as if to show he'd left the conversation.

Huggy let out a hiss of frustration, his hand working up and down in a crazed chopping motion. "Make it work!" he said. "Whatever it is that you've got -- that thing -- your winning hand... make it work." He began back to the bar and pointedly switched the lights off on them. "And while you're contemplating my wise words, do me a couple of favors... get out of here, it's tomorrow already. And... try this one on for size... don't fall apart apart. You know what I'm saying?"

Starsky unfolded his arms. "Too much advice for one night."

Huggy was relieved to see the crackle had gone from his eyes, but getting that close to laying out his best friend seemed to have sucked the energy right out of him. He looked down at the floor and said to Hutch, "Need a lift? Can be dangerous round here at this time of night."

"Yeah," Hutch said. "And you can never find a cop when you want one." He kneaded his forehead with the heels of his hands. "Sorry to mess you around, Hug. We're going now."

Starsky had gone over to the steps and was stumping up them to unbolt the door. Hutch followed.

"No charge, by the way," said Huggy, coming close behind. "For the advice, I mean." The sound of rain greeted them as the door opened to the night. Huggy shivered as he closed it behind them.

*

"Coming in?"

They were the first words that had passed between them all the way through the rain-soaked streets from the Pits to Venice Place, Starsky driving with one hand, his head propped up with the knuckles of the other, Hutch slumped with his head against the window, staring sleeplessly at the lights distorting through the waterlogged windshield.

Starsky let his head move from one side to the other. "No, going home..."

"No waitresses... no friends of waitresses and their other friends?"

"Not a one. That candle burning both ends, you know... when it gets to the middle, and it's all burnt out..."

"Uh-huh. A whole mess of wax."

"And limp string."

Hutch's laugh bubbled up but then drained away from him again. The rain hammered down on the windshield. He opened the door slowly, partly because he was that tired. Partly because he felt unwilling to leave the moment. The rain hit his back, sharp and stinging, but he leaned in the open door. Starsky cocked his head, waiting.

"Something going on at the Westline."

"Definitely," Starsky agreed.

"But to hell with it, right?"

Starsky's eyes changed a shade. Even in the poor light Hutch could see it. A little spark of interest.

"Uh-huh?"

"Something else we got to deal with."

Starsky's chin lifted a tad, questioning.

"Who brought down Butch and Milo, partner?...Who fired the bullets?"

Starsky looked away a second, just to digest it. Then he found Hutch again. "It's all being done," he said, and Hutch was dismayed to see the spark had gone.

"Sure. But not by us. We should be doing it. We owe them."

"Ah c'mon... tonight we couldn't even nail a guy we had the jump on."

"Think about it," Hutch said. "At least think about it."

Starsky mimed some kind of acquiescence, halfhearted at best, and obscured by the rain. "Pick you up at eight," he said and pressed his foot on the gas to make the Torino growl. Hutch slammed shut the door. He was soaking. Again. Starsky watched him run for the front door of Venice Place and disappear inside. For some reason he sat where he was until he saw the light come on upstairs, and all the time he was sitting he was dissuading himself from hopping out of the car and running right on after him.

*

Hutch was firing his gun.

Depressing the chamber again and again as the rain poured down but there were no bullets. Just the clicking sound in the dark and his thumping heart telling him a life depended on it.

"Oh God no!" he shouted.

And sat up in bed.

His forehead felt hot. His back felt cold, the bedclothes damp. It was still raining, but not in here, right? No, not in here.

He got up and stood at the end of the now-empty bed.

Oh God. _Here I am, standing around looking at the green light going out._ It bounced, regular as the rain for a bit, and then stuttered.

 _It's going to go out and I can't stop it._ The blipping sound in the dark and his thumping heart keeping rhythm...

Then just his heart.

He was not alone at the bedside.

"Hey, Hutch," said Milo.

"Not much going on now," said Butch Cassidy.

The rumpled sheets were red with blood, shining thick and wet under the lights.

"I'm so sorry," said the nurse. "Where were you? He asked for you. I'm afraid he's gone. Where on earth were you?"

"Oh God no!" he shouted. "I'm here now!"

And sat up in bed.

*

For ten or more seconds his heart thumped, a torrent pumped in his ears, and he stared forwards into the dark, still there, still feeling it.

Then he realized he could hear the rain drumming on the window. There was a gutter overflowing from water running off the roof and it was dripping steadily on the window-sill outside his room.

More. The sheet was stuck to his chest, cooling rapidly.

Hutch got out of bed. The continuing pressure of his heart rattling against his ribs was unnatural. As he rose to standing a wave of dizziness poured over him and he found himself down on one knee, scrabbling for a hand-hold on the bed. Something crashed to the floor as he hauled himself upright again. His head continued to spin, but he got himself across the floor and out into the kitchen.

His jacket, still sodden, was slung over a chair and he grasped at it, pawing to find the inside pocket. Relieved to get the shiny metal in his hand he flipped it, holding it to the nearest light source coming in under the blind, and read the number.

It was Milo's badge.

Milo's badge. Not Starsky's badge.

"Just dreaming," he said out loud to himself, but although it was at last beginning to fade his heart was still in overdrive.

Hutch pressed the badge back into the jacket pocket and sent his feet across to the couch. The layer of sweat on his upper body was drying, making him shiver. He picked up the phone and dialled.

Two rings. Three. Four.

 _"Yello,"_ said a deep voice, still stunned by sleep.

Relief slopped over him, a warming sensation that would have to substitute for having his partner pulled tight into his chest. "Starsk. 's me."

_"Hush... what time...? What the... What's goin' on?"_

Hutch held the receiver hard against his ear, letting the scratchy voice chase away the last shadows.

"It's OK... I'm sorry..."

_"Whatcha sorry 'bout? Hutch, what's going on? You alright? Hutch...? Hey, I'm coming over."_

"No, no, no, it's OK."

_"Talk to me, tell me what's happening."_

"It's nothing... I just had this dream. Sounds stupid... needed to hear your voice. I know... Stupid."

_"Jesus, Hutch... I'll be there."_

Hutch shut his eyes, let the voice wash soothingly over him. "No, you don't have to... Just needed the voice, buddy. Don't come over. Don't, you hear me? I'm fine... you were right all along. Too much coffee. But I'm alright now."

_"Don't sound alright. Tell me about this dream."_

"Starsky, I'm not telling you my dreams down the phone at five in the morning. I'm just not."

_"OK, that sounds better. Jesus, Hutchinson... you scared me. Is it really five in the morning? Oh crap..."_

"I'm sorry, Starsk. Really."

_"And I don't need to come over?"_

Hutch gulped in a bit of air. "No. Just answering the phone was all it took."

_"Just that?"_

"Really."

 _"Well..."_ The hint of a yawn. _"Glad to help."_

"I'm grateful. You go back to sleep now, and I'll see you later."

_"Well OK then."_

Hutch put down the phone, comforted by the thought that Starsky was probably slumping back right now, headlong into oblivion. He knew he himself was going to be more of a problem. Still, fuel up on granola and strawberry yoghurt, give it another hour and it would be light enough to go for a run. Looking down he realized he still had the badge in his hand.

"Dedication, Milo," he said out loud. "Takes dedication to keep fit. Didn't I tell you that a hundred times?"

*

Starsky did not sit in the Torino and wait for Hutch to come down. He jogged up the wet sidewalk, went in and took the stairs two at a time, rapping on the door with his fist.

"It's me!" he called through the wood.

"Of course it's you," Hutch said as he opened the door. "Twenty minutes late, but it's you."

"Hey," Starsky said, passing inside. "Good morning."

"Morning. I'll be right with you." Hutch still had wet hair, a towel round his neck and his razor in one hand. His running gear was in a pile on the floor. As he disappeared back into the bathroom, Starsky looked around him, feeling unease.

It was often chaotic in here. He had grown used to that. When Fifi was in favor the place could look pristine, and Hutch would keep it like that for a while, especially if he was dating, but at other times he would treat his living space like he treated the back of his car, and clearly now was one of those times. Only it was worse than usual. And running gear? How the hell did he get himself up and into running gear? And in the rain?

Starsky picked his way across the floor, taking in the jumble of items that covered the chairs, the used shirts hanging off door handles, the contents of the kitchen cupboards spread about on the table and work surfaces. There was a large damp patch under one of the plant baskets hanging from a beam and a stack of dirty cups in every direction he turned. When he went to join Hutch in the bathroom he was not surprised to find him standing on a pile of towels because most of the surface of the floor was swimming.

Starsky leaned.

"Am I right in thinking I got woken up at five this morning?"

Hutch, head tilted, moved his eyes in the mirror and then went back to concentrating on his chin. "Could be."

"You wanna tell me why?"

"I told you on the phone."

"Yes, I remember. What was the dream?"

Hutch just moved his eyes again.

"Well I would guess," said Starsky, pushing himself upright and picking up a dry towel, which he held out, "you dreamed that I bought it."

Hutch buried his face in the proffered towel. "That's about the size of it," he said when he emerged.

"Musta seemed real."

Hutch scurried past him, dropping the towel into his hands. Starsky followed close behind.

"You look like hell, Hutch."

"Well thank you."

"Do you want to tell me?"

Hutch had pulled a t-shirt over his head and was casting about for his jacket. He looked unusually crumpled. The shirt hung out of his pants and he just patted at it distractedly.

"You know dreams, Starsk. They don't make much sense. I'm sorry I disturbed you, because you know what?" and he came close, examining his partner as if he were an interesting new species in the zoo.

"What?"

"You look like hell too." He indicated that his partner should open the door.

Starsky followed him at his current dragging pace. Hutch jigged about on the spot until he got there.

"Back to the drawing board, Starsky."

"You got to be kidding me," Starsky groaned. "They jumped off a frigging roof, Hutch."

"Dobey said they were working our system."

"Rodney and Ella-Mae?"

"No, not... Butch and Milo, you moron. They were working our system."

"Our system?" said Starsky, sliding into his seat.

"Yes, you know... the 'who do we trust' system. How do we do it, huh?"

"Beats me. I didn't know we had a system."

"Oh yes you did. Go on, think about it, Starsk. When there's something big going to go down... when it's a case we've really invested in -- and those guys knew how important this first big case was for them -- what do we do? We tell Dobey what he needs to know... we shuffle a bit of paper... we get on the street and talk to everyone we know in the whispers department..."

"OK, OK. What you saying, Hutch?"

"We don't share," said Hutch. "Maybe we should do, I don't know... but we don't sit in the squadroom, or the cafeteria, and share... and nor did they."

"You're going somewhere with this, partner," Starsky said tiredly, "but right now I'm not going there with you."

"Listen... outside of you and me, there's nowhere for any of our plans and thoughts to go, right? But that's just because we're--"

"Sad, single and home alone," Starsky agreed. "But Milo... had Lizzie. For example."

"Well, don't you think it's worth a shot? He might just have said something. They were pretty close."

"Hum," said Starsky. "Tell me... you ever just say something to Vanessa?"

Hutch paused in the act of tucking in his shirt. "Starsk, Vanessa wanted me to be a doctor. She wouldn't have listened to anything short of 'honey, I'm throwing in my badge'."

Starsky came to a halt, eyes flicking to the rear-view. "I ever tell you that Vanessa never liked me?"

Hutch nearly smiled. He felt a bit as if they had fallen through a trapdoor last night, had somehow landed on their feet and might just be given the chance to start again.

"You didn't have to tell me, buddy."

Starsky finally saw the gap in the traffic and rotated the wheel in time to his foot stamping down on the gas. The tyres spun, nearly rocking Hutch into his lap.

*

All alone, Lizzie Fenn breakfasted on coffee, oatmeal and valium.

She picked up the morning paper from the step, wondered to herself how she hadn't heard the rain last night and when she would get the front lawn mowed, and went back in to her quiet house.

Showered and suited she smoked a cigarette on the back porch.

_God, Milo, I'll give up, I'll give up I promise you... when we have a baby, I promise._

The doorbell rang at ten before nine, not managing to wake her from a reverie. She was still watching the smoke float up out of her vision when she heard footsteps coming round the side of the house and the sound of a voice.

The cigarette dropped from her hand and she put a foot to it, just like she would do when Milo came home early, kicking the butt under the step just in time. Of course, she really didn't expect it to be Milo coming round the corner, but first the familiar sensation of guilt and then anticipation came over her followed straightaway by the fleeting, hopeless impression that it was Tom and Milo arriving.

"Puddle," she heard the voice say in warning, then a curse and a little laugh.

They came around the corner almost shoulder to shoulder, tickled by the puddle moment, briefly unaware of anything else, and then they saw her.

"Lizzie," said Hutch, stopping dead so that his partner barged into him.

Good God, did they have to be so like them?

She could find nothing to say, no greeting, no expression of surprise. She was momentarily laid low by the pain of it not being Milo and Tom. By unreasonable resentment that it was these two instead.

"Sorry..." Hutch found himself saying, "Sorry to walk in on you like this, Lizzie, I... uh, we just wanted to catch you... before..."

Her eyes strayed to her watch. She registered the time and then she shrugged.

"You wanted... what?"

"Just to talk."

"Oh," she said. "Talk." She motioned in the back door. "You'd better come in then."

They trailed in after her. She took them silently through the kitchen, up the hall and into the front room. It was still full of cards of sympathy and condolence. The cushions were still plumped. The TV was still pushed back into a corner.

"Please, sit down..."

Hutchinson sat leaning forward, clearly the one who would address her. Starsky perched.

Now they were here, Hutch decided maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all. This was Milo's widow -- why would she want to talk to them about the job that killed him?

But Lizzie helped him out.

"Well we've done the funeral," she said. "I've seen Milo's stuff from the precinct. I guess you guys can't be any sorrier than you already are... so, you must be here about what happened. You must have something more to tell me."

"Actually we don't have anything to tell you, Lizzie. I wish we did. That's the problem... not knowing how it went down that day."

"Seems pretty clear," she said.

Starsky had got off his perch and was on the wander. He had spied one of Milo's little cast-iron Model Ts, abandoned amongst the cards on a shelf.

"Not really. Tom and Milo went in there with a plan -- they knew what they were expecting and who they thought would be there. Trouble is, they didn't let anyone else in on it."

Lizzie regarded the polish on the fingernails of her left hand. She twiddled the wedding band. "And you're thinking that maybe they told me?" The wedding band slid off and then back on again. "You were married weren't you, Hutch?"

He sat back in his chair. Starsky glanced up from the Model T, looked at his partner, and then decided to stay out of it.

"Yes."

"And did you share any of your caseload with your wife?"

"Not... no."

"Listen. I'm not sure I really want to help you anyway, even if I could. I'm not sure I want you guys in my house. You're still out there, doing the stuff Milo and Tom did... you look like you don't sleep, like you don't ever think about anything except the latest case full of misery and guns and dead bodies. Hutch, you bring all that... that street stuff... you bring it in with you. I can't stand it. You're asking me if I know anything... For heaven's sake, Hutch, if they didn't tell you two guys..."

"The night before," Starsky said, laying aside the little car. His voice was quite steely. "What did they do the night before?"

"They were here," she said. "They were in this room. Milo was sitting right... right where you're sitting, Hutch. Tom was up and around, here and there, as usual. They had a few beers out back, I think they watched a game. I was working upstairs. I heard them laughing. Whenever I came in they were talking about... all different stuff, you know how they were... kidding around. Really... I never heard them talking shop, not in front of me." She fixed her eyes on Starsky. "Don't you two have a life?"

Starsky, disconcerted, looked to Hutch.

"Sorry," said Lizzie. "Low blow... Look, I really have to get to work. City Hall will about grind to a halt without me. You know how it is."

"OK, we understand. Can we give you a ride in?"

Her eyes opened wide, just imagining. "I really don't think I want to arrive at work in a police-car. Thank you anyway, but it's alright, I drive myself. Milo used to... well, anyway, I drive myself now." She stood up, regarding Hutch curiously. He looked panda-eyed. "I don't think there's much point in you going to bother the Cassidys either," she said, "if you were thinking of it. Milo and Tommy were... well, just like you two, just like you said at Tom's funeral, David. A god-damned private party all by themselves."

A self-maintaining unit, as Dobey would have it.

She saw them to the door.

"If anything comes to you, Lizzie," Hutch said. "Well, you know the number."

She looked him in the eyes, sincerely trying to empathize with what he surely must feel about Milo, but finding she was unable to. "All I know, Hutch... and I'm real sorry for it... I can't help it, sometimes I almost wish that it had been you two instead of them."

Starsky turned away from her, angered by that, dropping his eyes. He began down the steps but heard Hutch say quietly in reply, "Sometimes I almost do too," before following him down the path and over the road, looking overhead. It was still pretty hot and the clouds had not dispersed, threatening more rain. As he got in the car Starsky started in at him immediately.

"Sometimes you do too? What does that mean, sometimes you do too? Are you nuts? Listen, I wish to God it hadn't been Butch and Milo. Every day I wish to God it hadn't... but I'm sure glad it wasn't us. Are you listening to me, Hutch? I don't know what you're doing to yourself, man, what you're dreaming, what's going on in that ditzy blond head of yours... but it wasn't us. You hear me? It wasn't us!"

There was the anger of frustration and weariness in Starsky's voice. The anger of not understanding.

Hutch felt the trapdoor opening beneath them again.


	5. Falling

**_A man called Wendy; a pincer movement; crackers; bullets in the dark; First Aid in the Pits; Starsky gets trashed and Hutch loses the plot..._ **

 

"I offered you the choice last time," Captain Dobey said. "This time I'm thinking of ordering you both to take a week."

He felt tired just watching them. Both had done nothing but pad about his office like a couple of big cats on the wrong side of the river from their lunch. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised they looked the way they did and were behaving like the whole partnership shebang was an annoyance they couldn't deal with. It was the fallout of his predictions, and his faith that they would somehow cling on while the storm blew over felt more than a little shaky.

"I don't know what stunt you pulled up on the roof of the Westline last night," he said, every inch their superior officer, "but you got nothing and probably blew the whole case. If circumstances were different... I can tell you... I'm running out of patience..."

"We want to work Tom and Milo's case, Cap," Hutch said as if he had heard not a single word.

"Oh you do?" Dobey was not sure whether he should be doing rage or concern right now, but the truth was that faulty -- or mishandled -- weapons, bullets spraying around on a windswept rooftop, no back-up and wanted felons disappearing into the night... well the truth was, that scared the hell out of him when it was being served up by these two. "Even though it seems like you couldn't work a slot machine right now? Does the same go for you too, Detective Starsky? You want to work their case?"

Starsky, brow furrowed by a deep frown, said, "No, I want the week."

Hutch looked at him in amazement. "Starsky..."

"I want the week, Hutch," said Starsky. "We'll take it, Cap. It's just leave, right? You're not thinking of hanging us out to dry or nothin'?"

"I'm offering leave. So you can get some rest. Sort yourselves out."

Hutch was still gaping.

"And the Westline?" Starsky went on.

"I'll reassign," Dobey said. "Not that you've left much to go on." He looked at Hutchinson. "You'll take the week too?"

"No," said Hutch. "No I won't take the goddamn week, Captain. I'll work the case alone."

"You sure as hell won't," Dobey told him.

"OK I won't work it alone," Hutch blundered on. "Find me another partner."

He could feel Starsky looking at him to see if he meant it. Hutch didn't dare look back for the moment, knowing the pain he would see.

"You can take a week's leave, Hutchinson, or I'll suspend you for a week. How's that?"

The fireball ricocheted around at the base of Hutch's esophagus. A fine prickle of icy sweat broke out across his shoulder-blades making him feel woozy. He clenched his fists because he knew his trembling hands would give him away. Starsky's face across the room blurred a little at the edges and then swam back into clear view. Hutch heard his words coming out of a tunnel.

"I'll drive you home, Hutch... hey, you OK? Where you going? Hey, Hutch..."

The voice receded as he crashed out of Dobey's office and somehow negotiated the squadroom without causing an accident. Faces out in the corridor streaked past him. He bypassed the elevator and pushed his way into the stairwell, feeling his feet tumbling over themselves as he descended, touching on the handrail at each corner, just to keep himself upright.

Standing on the street at the back of Parker Center he made himself breathe steady until he was sure he was not going to fold. Then he pushed himself off the spot into a brisk walk.

Work that fireball, Hutchinson.

Rounding the corner he raised his hand for a cab. He figured he might have about an hour's running in him, if he took on sugar.

Back in Dobey's office, the Captain pitched himself into the safety of his chair. "Make sure he's alright," he said gruffly. "Looks like it could be a bumpy landing."

"He can look after himself," Starsky said. He had stared for a few seconds at the shaking door, and then pushed it closed with his foot.

"Who's going to catch him if you don't?" the Captain muttered.

"Co-pilot's going on leave," Starsky stated, stubborn.

Dobey stabbed his elbows down on the desk. He laced his fingers together and poked at his chin with both thumbs, keeping his eyes locked on the Detective. Starsky hardly blinked, and eventually Dobey waved him away. As the door closed he pulled open his bottom desk drawer. The blue files were still in there.

He plumped them on his desk and flicked open the front cover of the one on top.

Hutchinson, K.R.L.... Lost the plot. Now... did that seem like a reasonable update to give to Personnel?

*

Hutch was reading over his notes.

God knows, he had read them over what seemed like a hundred times. Starsky had told him not to bother, just to shoot straight from the hip, but Hutch couldn't do that to himself. Not in black. Not before all these expectant people waiting to be comforted and uplifted.

He left Starsky and was walking out front.

The ranks of mourners seemed to go back into a far horizon. Most of them were not looking at him.

Except Lizzie Fenn, alone, in her black. Her face had been turned towards Milo's casket but now she looked in his direction, and she was frowning.

Hutch felt in his pocket for the notes and his stomach fell away as he found nothing.

So he had to do as Starsky told him and shoot straight from the hip.

Just as he was opening his mouth, Hutch looked out at all the people and saw Milo sitting next to Lizzie. Alive and well and sitting by his wife. Someone touched his shoulder and he turned his head.

Tom Cassidy was standing there, his face uncharacteristically somber.

"Here's his badge, Hutch," Tom said, and held it out to him.

Hutch shut his eyes, but a steady dripping sound made him open them again. This time it came to him in bright color and sharp sound. Just for a split second, but enough for him to see clearly -- spreadeagled, cut to pieces by bullet-holes, arms thrown wide, drowning in blood and rain at his feet.

"Where were you?" Hutch shouted.

And he made himself sit up, thinking that would be enough to make it go away.

"Hey, Hutch," Tom was saying, soft and soothing. "Hutch... it's all OK."

As he tried to shout out again he felt Tom's hand brush his face.

*

"Hutch." The voice was stronger now, more urgent. "It's OK now. It's OK. Try and breathe now. Come on, it's all OK."

Hutch attempted to speak but it felt as if his lungs were empty. One tricky breath squeezed in and he let it out again in a panicky burst. "Where were you? Where were you?"

Starsky was sitting on the bed. He still had one hand on the side of Hutch's face.

"You're coming out of it," he said. "Look at me, Hutch. Here I am. Bin here all along. Still here." He let Hutch stare at him, waiting for real recognition to dawn. He spread his hands and wiggled the fingers. "See? It's me, I promise ya. Ain't no phantom. Whoa... there you go."

Hutch abruptly jerked backwards. He stared hard at Starsky, looking sick and disoriented.

"Jesus, Hutch, you're doing it again. Scaring the living daylights out of me."

"Where were you?" the blond man repeated numbly, sinking his head down on to Starsky's upper arm and lying there a dead weight.

"Here all the time," Starsky repeated firmly, looking down on the damp straw-colored hair now sticking out in all directions. Gentle but steady he plowed a vertical furrow between Hutch's shoulder-blades.

"Good," Hutch said, shivering against his arm. "Good... job."

"I found you running the marathon, remember?" Starsky said.

A longer pause and then, "Yeah, yeah, 'course I remember. You drove along next to me and I thought I was being stalked."

"That's right. We came here. We ate dinner. I told you I was going to stay and you said..."

"Get the hell out and leave me alone," supplied Hutch from below.

"Good, good. That sounds a lot better. Here.." and he levered Hutch back up into a sitting position. "Hellfire, Hutchinson. Look at ya. You're sweating out half of Colombia. Need to get some fluid in you, bud." He bounced off the bed and left the room, returning a minute later with what looked like a flower-vase full of water.

"What...?" said Hutch, teeth still clattering together. "What is that?"

Starsky shrugged. "I don't know. You don't have to look like that. I rinsed it out." He sat down again on the side of the bed and held out the oversized receptacle. "Here you go. Jeez, don't drench yourself in it, you'll give yourself pneumonia..." For Hutch's twitching had slopped the water all down his front. "I'll hold it steady. Come on, you gotta drink it. You need this."

Hutch gulped what he could.

"You'd better tell me," Starsky said, hauling a blanket up from the foot of the bed, throwing it around him tight and holding it there.

The shivering had lessened but not abated. "Bottom line is... it isn't Butch or Milo, Starsky." That one image was flashing before his eyes again. "It's you." The head went heavy again. "Don't need analysis to tell me I'm afraid of that."

Hutch dragged his head up and abruptly broke Starsky's grip on the blanket, pushing him off the bed with his feet. "Let's go sit out there." As Starsky hesitated, trying to keep up, Hutch reached out and caught hold of his hand, pulling him behind. "Will you come sit with me? I've still got you bleeding all over a rooftop." He did not let go until he had dragged Starsky down next to him on the couch and then he said, "What do you think?"

Starsky took a deep breath. "I'll tell you what I think. I think it ain't gonna happen," he said. "Look at me, willya? Am I the type to go down in a hail of bullets? Nah... more likely to break my neck on the stairs at the ballgame carrying too many chilli dogs."

Hutch looked sideways at him. "The dogs'll kill you without you needing the stairs, Starsk."

"Yeah well whatever. You warm enough?"

"Getting there." Hutch regarded the bare feet resting on the coffee table. "Do me a favor though, would you... if it happens, Starsk... you know... let's at least make sure we go together."

"That's always been the plan, Blondie."

"I'm not going to stand around in a hospital watching while... can't do it, Starsk. I know I can't."

"Who says it's going to be me?" Starsky demanded. "Your dreams stink, Hutchinson. Seems like I don't get to do nothin' but die. You could at least give me a few lines."

"You... you're funny, you know that?"

Starsky sat up straight and brought his hand down with a smack on Hutch's knee. "Yeah. And whatever brand of coffee you've been drinking needs a government health warning."

*

"I really think you should give it a miss," Starsky said at eight-thirty, watching Hutch hauling on his sweats with his shaky fingers. Between the end of the dream and the coming of daylight they had sat there on the couch watching TV and eating chips. And not talking much.

"Yeah, why?"

"Because I don't think it's good for you... right now."

Hutch shook his head. "Listen, you've never thought it's good for me. What's different... right now?"

"Uh... you don't eat... you don't sleep... jus' worried you're gonna fall down on the sidewalk."

"I need the air, Starsky. I need to move. Seeing as you've forced us into having time off, this is how I want to use it."

"I never forced you. You'd 'a been suspended otherwise, and then you wouldn't have been able to do anything."

"Meaning... what?"

"Meaning... we're only on leave, Hutch. We can still do stuff... look into stuff... on leave -- 'swhy I told Dobey I wanted the week."

Hutch stopped what he was doing. "You know," he said. "Sometimes you're smarter than you look." He bent down to haul on his running shoes.

"Well you're not. You're dumber."

"Fine. I'll see you in half an hour."

"Sure. If you make it."

"Get off my back, Starsky, would you, please?"

Starsky was aware that the front door had slapped shut. He closed his eyes, wondering to himself if he was going to bother to be here when Hutch got back. He had to sleep sometime, but he felt unaccountably afraid to leave Hutch on his own. He didn't like the idea of him dreaming that stuff with no-one there. And for sure, once night came, and his slaked system tried to shut down for a few hours, he would be dreaming it all again.

Nevertheless, he was preparing to leave when Hutch got back, forty-five minutes later, sweating and over-breathing. Hutch's look said "what are you still doing here?". His partner took a last little look around the trashed apartment. It felt all wrong. Not like Hutch's home. It was the home of somebody else, somebody... fuck, somebody obsessive and addictive and mad at something.

"So tell me..." Starsky dared to say, even as he got his hand to the door, "because you're afraid I'm about to be plastered all over a rooftop you're always mad at me. Is that it?"

"Am I always mad at you?"

"C'mon, Hutchinson. You nearly laid one on me the other night at Huggy's."

Hutch was confused by that. His own memory was of a shocking sense that Starsky was about to unleash a no-holds-barred punch right in his teeth. "Well," he fluffed, "while we're busy picking me to bits... what's with this... this bed-hopping routine of yours?"

Starsky's face indicated he was giving the question serious thought, but the flippant tone of the reply suggested otherwise. "I dunno. Maybe it stops me dreaming. I'll seeya, OK? Got to get some sleep. You take it easy."

"Easy," Hutch said. "Sure. Easy."

*

At six o'clock, the Kettle of Fish on Third was quietly chugging. The first crab platters were coming off the assembly line and the first wave of workers and students were drifting in. Sunshine spilled in the open doors and windows and the fans were turning lazily.

Lola adjusted her girdle, glanced in the mirror at the back of the bar and surveyed tables five and six where there were a bunch of out-of-towners sitting staring around. As she swished out across the floor, plucking her pen from behind her ear, she became aware of a man entering the side door and stopping just inside to take off his dark glasses. She passed him on the way to her tables, nudging him with one hip as she did so.

"Hey, you're back."

"Like a bad penny," said the man.

"I'll be with you in a... go sit at the bar."

Having given the long order in through the kitchen hatch, Lola hurried back to the bar and slipped behind it quickly before the man, sitting on a stool, could be served by anyone else.

"Are you here for me?" she asked straight out.

Starsky leaned towards her and then plumped his chin into his cupped hands. "Only you, sweetheart."

"Yeah, well you've been awol for a while, mister. And don't think I don't know who've you've been awol with."

"What can I say?"

She looked at him as she poured the beer. He was just the cutest... but hell, he was looking wrecked. He drank the beer as if it was lifeblood. A man with something heavy on his mind, and in his heart. Not the kind to go falling for. That way led only to misery. And yet...

"So, are you staying?"

"What time're you off?"

"Closing time."

He shut one eye, considering. "You want me to stay?"

"It's always nice to have a friend."

"Hey," he said. "My sentiments exactly."

"OK, so stay until closing time. What happens then?"

"What ever happens then?" He drank more beer, his eyebrows raised at her over the rim of the glass. "Tell me to go, I'll go. Tell me to wait, I'll wait. Gotta tell you though. I have to go do some babysitting later on. Much later on."

"David... you... oh, goddamnit. You want to eat?"

"Now you're talking."

"OK. I'll feed you. I'll wait on you. Then you can take me home. And I might just cancel the date at the door."

"You won't," said Starsky, and they both broke into a grin.

*

He found Hutch eating crackers.

Sitting on the edge of the couch eating crackers and drinking water out of that damned flower vase. He was sweaty and pale.

"You're too late," he said, turning his head as Starsky let himself quietly in the door. Starsky's reflex was to look at his watch. Four-twenty am.

"Too late?"

"Yeah, if you were coming to hold my hand again, you missed it. I'm afraid you got blasted again, buddy. Sure hope it's not a premonition, because it was a pretty fucking bad end."

Starsky slithered on to end of the couch. "You OK?"

"Peachy."

"Sorry... you said you didn't want me to come back anyway."

"So why're you here?"

"Dunno. Thought it might help."

"Where've you been?"

Starsky shrugged. "Doesn't matter."

"You've been out, haven't you? Can smell the booze."

"Like I said, it doesn't matter." He let the pause go on until he was sure Hutch was not going to reach out to him. "I'll go home then... if you're alright."

"Fine."

"You going to sit there and eat crackers?"

"Maybe. Haven't drunk any coffee."

"No. Just Coke. That'll keep you wound up."

"Don't talk to me about being wound up."

"OK then, I won't."

Completely against Hutch's expectation, Starsky got his feet on that line and went to the door, exiting without a backward glance.

Hutch sat chewing. He listened for the sound of the Torino's engine starting up. A dim, comforting rumble in the background. The engine seemed to turn over for a minute or more, the car staying in place underneath his windows. As if Starsky was trying to decide whether to turn it off again and come back up. Hutch listened. Eventually, the cranking of the handbrake could be heard, and then the Torino pulling away, very slowly, and moving off up the street. And then fading away.

Hutch screwed up the empty cracker packet and threw it across the room. He felt like weeping.

*

Starsky knew it would be pushing his luck to go back to Lola's from Hutch's place, or to Martine's, so he went home, discovering himself the next morning face down, dressed, with his feet hanging off the end of the bed. Crawling up on to his hands and knees he decided it must really be midday because that's what his clock said.

In the shower, standing with one hand propping him up on the wall, letting the water hit him, hard and hot, on the back of the neck, he heard the phone. When he padded out of the bathroom it was still ringing.

Hutch. Had to be.

He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me.

"I'm here," he said into the receiver.

_"Hey, sweetie... I knew you'd be there."_

"Martine?"

_"You got it. How you feeling? Lola said she last saw you about four in the morning and you weren't going home. Just how many of us are there in this relationship anyway?"_

Starsky rubbed the back of his head. Did these two have the measure of him, or what?

"Listen," he said wearily, "if anybody's unhappy with this, then I'll dip out."

Martine giggled at him down the phone. _"Honey, we considered having a cat-fight over you but it seemed like a waste of time. Sooner or later you'll make your choice. Lola's sure it'll be her. And..."_

"You're sure it'll be you."

_"I'm pretty sure, sweetface, but I'm kinda worried about this fourth party."_

"Fourth party?"

_"This guy you were with last night."_

"Right. Well I wouldn't worry about that."

_"If you say so, darlin'. But Lola and me think you're kinda tricksy."_

Starsky tugged at his hair. "Tricksy, huh?"

The smoky voice laughed again. _"You coming out to play tonight?"_

"What's the game?"

_"Party, party-boy."_

Starsky considered the fourth party. He loves me, he loves me not.

"At yours?"

Martine purred at him. _"Uh-huh. And guess what else?"_

"What else?"

_"Lola's gonna be there too. Think you can handle it?"_

A sudden blankness swirled around Starsky. A tangible hurt in his chest, and then the blankness. He hadn't seen what was in Hutch's dream. But he had seen Tom and Milo. He saw them now. Hutch's future, his own future perhaps, hung in front of him too. It had to be a grand exit. If it was going to be honor guards and eulogies then at least he was going to go down all in one go, screaming maybe, but gone before the gun-smoke had cleared.

"Martine," he said, "I'm cleared for take-off."

*

Hutch managed to force himself awake at the first sound of gunfire.

His sub-conscious told him what was about to happen, so he forced himself to wake up. For ten seconds or more he was not quite sure where he was, or if he had succeeded.

The sense of having missed something, of being too late, was heavy on him as he crawled from the bed. Pain squeezed his solar plexus tight. He didn't know if it was lack of food or plain fear.

Three thirty on the clock. No Starsky again, but he berated himself for hoping. He went straight for the drawer in the little bureau that stood in the main room of his apartment, next to the piano, crunching cracker-crumbs underfoot, and pulled out Milo's badge.

As he stared at it he tried to picture Milo's face. In his dreams he could never see it clearly. Tom was always clear as day. Milo was obscured. But when he tried to think, tried to picture it, all that came to him was the mess of someone on the ground.

An overwhelming urge to see Starsky overcame him.

*

"Morning, David," said Mr. Dunkley at 2482 Ridgeway, bending to pick up his newspaper and catching sight of his neighbor weaving up the sidewalk carrying his jacket. His tone was severe.

Starsky raised a hand cheerily, but Dunkley just glared. Drunk at eight o'clock in the morning -- damn layabout cops.

_Kiss my ass, Dunkley._

He tottered further up the hill and hauled his way up the steps, digging for his key. The Torino was about five blocks behind him, with a small stone gatepost rammed up the front axle.

Inside the front door he dropped the jacket and leaned back for a second, closing his eyes. A heavy dose of aspirin, a glass of milk and a day laying face down on his bed ought to do it.

"Welcome home," said a voice.

"Jesus!" Starsky yelped, almost dropping into a shooting stance and then recalling his gun was hanging on the coat-stand.

Hutch was sitting looking at him.

"Would you... Jesus, Hutch... don't do that! You nearly gave me... what the hell are you doing here at this time?"

Hutch watched him come forward unsteadily. He paused in the center of the room trying to decide what to do first, and then made for the bathroom. The door banged shut. There was clattering and then silence. Then more clattering. The flush sounded and he came out and made determinedly for the kitchen.

"How long you been here?" he asked through a mouthful of pills.

"'Bout four hours."

"Jesus," said Starsky again. "What for? You alright?"

"Just dropped by," Hutch said.

"At four in the morning? You're some piece of work, you know that?"

Starsky sank down on a chair and stretched his legs out in front of him.

"Don't you think this is taking things a bit too far?" Hutch asked.

"Hmmm?" Starsky's eyes had drifted closed. "Far? What's far?"

"This partying game."

"Partying game," Starsky repeated, eyes still closed.

"Trashing yourself on booze, late nights and party girls."

Starsky's eyelids lifted. He didn't like the way Hutch had said "party girls" -- in the same tone he might have said "call girls".

"Don't need a lecture from you," he said. "We're not on duty, and you're not my keeper."

"Yeah, but where do you go from here? The gutter?"

Despite the drumming in his head, Starsky pushed himself upright. He knew all his words were slurring out at double the normal volume. "Don't you come round here giving me the third degree," he said. "I don't need to explain nothing to you. Is this what you came round for? To get snotty about the people I like to spend time with?"

"No, I thought I... well, it doesn't matter."

"You thought what?" Starsky had got up now. "You could catch me falling through my door off my face? The kind of thing to make clean-living Officer Hutchinson feel ever so slightly superior?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Can't help it, born that way."

"Listen, Starsky..."

"No, you listen. You take your wise-ass opinions, and your running shoes, and... and your... your stupid, B-movie dreams and leave me alone to have a big, goddamned, fucking hangover in peace. OK?"

Hutch got up too. He picked a jacket from the back of the couch and draped it over one shoulder.

"I came over," he said, "because I needed to see... I was just thinking about what Huggy said... you know, about falling apart apart." He spread his hands, making an appeal. "What's going on here, Starsk? How'd we get here?"

Starsky was feeling his way back to the chair. He stopped for a moment, swallowed something down, and then went on, blithely trampling over the proffered olive branch. "Don't know about you," he said indistinctly, "but I had to walk because I crashed my car." He sank into the cushions, shutting his eyes again and putting one hand over them. "Dobey is going to skin me alive."

Hutch stood where he was, looking at him, still wanting an answer to his question, the branch still on offer.

There was a loud rap on the front door.

"Oh God..." Starsky groaned, "he's heard about it already..."

Hutch went over to open it. Starsky heard him say something, and then he sensed that someone else had come in and was standing in the middle of the room. Once more he dragged open his eyes, and found that Lizzie Fenn was in front of him. She had that same air of dangerous composure about her that she carried all the time now, an unlit cigarette in her hand. She didn't seem to be the same woman who had once danced on a table at her own engagement party.

"I've been trying to reach you both at the precinct," she said, her eyes flickering about looking for a light. Hutch went to search through a drawer for matches. "Leaving messages... but today I find out you're... on leave. Tried Hutch's, so thought... well, I'd try here. Is it true -- that you're on leave?"

"That's right," Starsky said, managing to get upright again.

Lizzie bent her head, accepting a lit match, drawing hard.

"Is that vacation time leave, or go away and get your head together leave?" she asked, her throat full of smoke which she blew upwards.

Starsky just stared at it, drifting up to his ceiling, and then back at her.

He had a flash of that engagement party. Of Tom and him leaning up against the wall by the stairs of this bar near City Hall, Tom earnestly seeking his advice as to where a new wife was going to leave him in the partnership stakes. Starsky had a married partner, after all. He should know. And many thoughts had come to Starsky's mind.

Said something way out of line. Can't remember what. But Tommy looked over at Lizzie and laughed.

He heard the laugh, full of mischief and affection. It rippled right through his head.

"David?"

"Huh? Oh, regular leave... right?" And he looked at Hutch, who nodded.

"Well I just came over," she said, "because like I said... I've been trying to reach you guys. There was just something I thought of, after you came by the other day. It probably won't be much help."

"Try us," Hutch said.

"OK. Do you work with a girl called Wendy?"

They looked at each other.

Lizzie was thinking you guys don't look in any shape to remember anything, and her face showed it. Alright, let me help you some more.

"It's just that I remembered... it was a few days before... they were round at the house, just talking in the hallway and I came down to say goodbye to Tom and I heard him say something like... we'd better go to Wendy with that one... it's not much, I know."

"Wendy," said Hutch.

"Wendy," repeated Starsky. "Nobody at the station called Wendy."

Lizzie shrugged. "Well," she said. "I thought I maybe better just tell you. In case..." She shrugged again. "It's no help, huh? Yeah, I guess he could have meant all kinds of things. Was hard to figure out what Tommy was on about at the best of times. Perhaps he had a secret girlfriend." She drew on the cigarette again, looking around now for an ashtray.

"No, wait a minute," Hutch said, picking up an empty coffee cup and handing it her. "Starsky, you remember that little guy... I don't know, that little chancer, the guy who came through at the last minute with enough back-story on Joe Wells to put him away for twenty years...?"

Lizzie Fenn, who had felt the charged, oppressive atmosphere when she had first walked in, now watched the old, familiar signs that told her that the wheels were turning, they were starting to tune in to their exclusive wavelength. Milo and Tom would do it about everything under the sun. Obscure baseball facts. Heavy rock bands. Movie trivia. How to say "hands up" in twenty different languages...

"Yeah," Hutch went on, "He was a little guy... nobody could say his name, but it sounded something like..."

"Pan," Starsky said.

"That's it... something like Pan... so they called him..."

"Wendy," Starsky said.

Thinking as one.

Lizzie wished she could feel more satisfaction than she did. The feeling she got was more akin to fear, wondering to what unknown dangers it might lead them.

Starsky fell back in the chair and gave a small groan as the effort to think straight lamped him between the eyes.

"Looks like it could help after all?" Lizzie questioned.

"Maybe, Liz... maybe... if we can find the guy... if there's a connection."

"We'll find him," Starsky muttered from behind his shuttered lids, his chin sinking groggily on to his chest.

"Yuh," Hutch agreed. Lizzie felt again she was watching something painfully familiar as he went over to the chair and tilted the chin up again with two fingers and a thumb, just to get a good look at the pea-soup tinge of the skin. "Though we might have to crawl there on our hands and knees."

Lizzie turned to leave, leave them alone to cope with one another. In her experience it had been well nigh impossible to come in and make any difference to something going on between Milo and Tom. But just now she had come in like a champion sheepdog and herded these two stragglers into the same pen. She wasn't quite sure how. Looked liked the wolves might already have got at them, but hopefully they were safe for a couple of hours.

The phrase 'lambs to the slaughter' came to her unbidden as she dropped her cigarette butt on the sidewalk, stepped on it, kicked the butt under Starsky's steps and walked away towards her car.

*

Coming up for 11pm.

Captain Dobey had just dropped off to sleep, right at the moment when he had been getting ready to clamber out of bed once again and go and tell Cal to turn off that infernal racket he was playing on the radio in his room. Edith was gently snoring on her side of the bed. Rosie, and her doll, were wedged between them.

Huggy Bear was on the phone to his cousin, although he couldn't hear much of what he was saying over the noise in the Pits. The joint was so full it was about hitting breaking point. Huggy's cousin had a problem, that much was clear. Something to do with his racing pigeons.

Across town in the Kettle of Fish Lola was counting up her tips so far. She had been glancing hopefully towards the doors all night, waiting on the sight of a jaunty, leather-jacketed figure, all baggy eyes and wisecracks, but so far nothing.

John Srichapan left his wife snorting her second line of the night with her friends and headed through the backstreets that clustered around the old docks to Market Street, where he hooked up with Lazy Les who had been waiting for him outside the Korean deli. They hung around smoking for a while, and then Les suggested they go to the bar on the corner. As they traversed the wide street the deep sound of a ship's horn far out in the bay cut across the night. It hardly registered with them, so accustomed were they in their private and working lives to the metallic echoes coming to them from across the water. Neither did it register that a gnarled brown Ford was sitting on the opposite corner from the bar.

Once Hutch had been out to get the Tomato towed off the gatepost and delivered to Merl's, and then dragged Starsky from his bed into the daylight and the passenger seat of the LTD, the trail had taken them from Huggy Bear to Fifth Avenue and from Fifth Avenue to Martin the Mailman. Martin, who dropped packages for any baron who was willing to pay him, and who had lately been dabbling -- like Scrichapan -- in snitching to help pay the rent, had nosed them in the direction of Market Street where they had been sitting for two hours or more. Hutch was preternaturally wide awake as usual, and his partner was still struggling against the contents of his bloodstream.

"That's him alright," Hutch said. He glanced sideways. "Want a beer?"

Starsky waved the taunt away and then gestured over the street. "We're going to be about as welcome in there as a case of the clap."

"Just as well we're so on top of our game then," Hutch replied, opening his door.

They walked across and stood outside a while, listening to the sounds from within.

"Cigars, tattoos and working girls," Hutch said, looking down at his neat slacks. "You going to make it?" The question was more disbelieving than humorous.

Starsky pawed at his scratchy overnight shadow. "You kidding, I'm going to fit right in."

"Well take it easy, huh? We just want to have a little talk, not cause a major scramble."

Starsky rolled his eyes at Hutch stating the obvious.

The prospects of having a little talk inside this place became clear once they got down and through the heavy curtains that hung inside the doorway. It was jammed, pulsating with noise from the jukebox. Everyone in there seemed to have a bottle of beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Hutch flapped a hand in front of his face but it didn't disperse any of the smoke, which got him right in the eyes, making him realise that perhaps he was not quite so wideawake as he had thought. He felt Starsky nudge him.

John Srichapan was leaning on the bar, back to them, talking to a bartender.

Without any further communication Hutch drifted right and Starsky left.

The theory involved executing a perfect pincer movement. The kind of movement they had executed dozens of times -- speedy, slow, one in a car and one on foot, in pitch black alleyways and under the bright lights of shopping malls. A matter of practice and intuition.

But never before when they were laid so low. And Hutch felt that were laid pretty low. His magnum hung heavy under his arm. He felt unsure of the distance between himself and his partner. He did not know if Starsky could react, let alone run if it became necessary. Or himself come to that. The people they had to push past were sullen and suspicious.

Srichapan turned around when the bartender suddenly raised his eyebrows and jerked his head. His sharp brown eyes swivelled between the two. Their faces did not seem immediately familiar, but the way they were moving told him, without a shred of doubt, that they were cops. And that they were cops who were coming to find him.

And for why? How he fed his wife's habit... His part in a robbery last week... What he knew about half a dozen heavy scenes that could get him killed... Hell, a drawer full of unpaid parking tickets...

Exhibiting an agility that should not have surprised anyone who had ever given John Srichapan more than a passing glance, the small man placed both hands on the bar and hopped over it, knocking over his own bottle and two others as he did so. The barman stepped right back to let him past.

Pincer movement in tatters, they followed him, barging a way through four or five people each on the way. Hutch made it first, his reactions quicker, his route through to the back door easier.

When Starsky fell rather than jumped down the steps into the pitchy dark at the back of the bar, he stopped short. Thudding footsteps told him Hutch was on the chase. His own legs were leaden, entirely out of gas. He had no idea what Hutch could possibly be running on. But when he heard two little gunshots, like they were coming from an air pistol, he began to move. After about ten steps he thought he might pass out. A third shot went into the ground in front of his toes, and still there was no returning fire from Hutch.

Starsky, bent over with his hands on his knees, was just about considering the possibility that Hutch might be in serious trouble and he was not going to be able to help, when a figure came sprinting out of the darkness ahead, and crashed straight into him. He went down backwards, taking the full weight of the figure in the chest, the front of a man's head cracking against his cheek, the back of his own cracking the uneven ground. There was a brief moment when he heard feet scrabbling to get up, and then a second weight landed on top of him.

Overhead two voices intertwined, both shouting. There were three of them on the ground.

"Would you calm down!" he heard Hutch yelling. "We just want to talk to you! Would you just... take it easy..." and finally the weight slithered off him.

He rolled over, crawled a few inches and then said "Hutch..." very feebly.

Hutch, however, seemed to be busy elsewhere.

Srichapan had been plopped down in a sitting position against some railings. He was eying the large gun in the blond cop's hands with fear and mistrust.

"Just want to talk," Hutch repeated. "You give me that pop-gun of yours, Wendy. It's no contest here. Come on, hand it over."

"Hutch," Starsky ground out again.

"With you in a minute," Hutch said, a little sharp. He pocketed the miniature and then put away his own gun.

Srichapan let his legs sink down straight in front of him.

"What you want?" he asked testily. "You gonna take me in?"

"Nope," said Hutch. "Not even for taking pot-shots at us." He turned his head and looked hard into the dark. "Talk to me, Starsky. What's happening?"

Starsky said something but it wasn't clear what. A jag of pain shot through Hutch's hand. At the same moment he felt, for the first time, a stream of warmth running down inside his sleeve.

"Very simple, Wendy. You tell us why you were talking to Fenn and Cassidy... and we let you go."

"I didn't have anything to do with what happened!" Srichapan squawked.

"Yeah? Ya know who did?"

"I gave them some word... nothing fancy... just a few bits..."

"Some bits on Duke King?"

Consternation wrote itself across the little man's face. "The Duke? Nah... nothing like that. We talked about some old cases... nothing like King."

"The old cases have anything to do with them turning up at a rendezvous and getting blown away?"

Starsky lifted his head off the ground. He knew he was going to throw up sooner or later. Didn't seem much point holding it back by keeping his head still. He figured he might just try and crawl a little further away. Hutch sounded a bit edgy, but he seemed to be on top of things.

"Hey, listen, man... I din have nothing to do with them getting whacked. And neither did the Duke."

"Well somebody did," Hutch said. "Because they sure didn't shoot themselves."

"Whaddya mean whacked?" Starsky mumbled from a few feet away.

"I mean..."

"...You mean it was a hit?" Hutch was standing right over him now. He had posted one of his hands in the opposite armpit, and the grimace he was making was more than fury.

Srichapan brought his knees up again, nervous. "Hey, the Duke's got plenty of big hitters, but none of them took out the cops. Come on, you guys have been putting the heat on his operation... what you got? A big fat nothing, right? That's because it wasn't anything to do with him. I'm telling you."

"You're telling us, Wendy," said Hutch, "but it's not making any sense."

"I don't know! Nobody's heard nothin..."

"If nobody heard nothing, slimeball," growled Starsky, levering himself up on to his hands and knees, "then how come somebody knew where they'd be that day?"

"I don't know! I don't know how they knew."

Hutch pointed a finger at him. "You knew... didn't you?"

"Listen," whined Scrichapan, "they came to me with this little snippet they got from somewhere... about stuff going on down here, my patch... and we were just having a chat, you know... our little weekly chat. I knew they were planning some kind of a move on the Duke... but it wasn't there... that place where they went down. It was somewhere else... and it was going to be later, three o'clock... I'm telling you... what happened to them came out of the blue, man... it was something else... no-one knows nothing about it."

"Out of the blue," Hutch said. He glanced over at his partner who was evidently trying to throw up down the side of a wall. When he pulled his throbbing hand out from under his arm it burned from a spot just under his thumb, all the way up to the elbow. "Just as well you run solo, Wendy," he went on. "Because we're more or less down and out... go on, get out of here."

Srichapan's feet pattered rapidly off into the darkness. A breeze blew off the dock that Hutch suddenly realized was only a few feet to their left.

Starsky had moved along the wall that he had found and was lowering himself slowly into a sitting position. Hutch went over and slid inelegantly down by his side. The jarring of his hand made him suck in air sharply.

"What's the matter?"

"Just a graze."

"What, you got metal in you?"

"Think it went straight... through." Starsky peered over. Hutch's left hand was covered in blood. He got his own into his jacket and pulled out a scrunched-up piece of fabric. Hutch watched in a trance-like fascination as he shook it open clumsily, revealing what looked like a oily rag. He reached over and took hold of Hutch's fingers, and when Hutch tried to pull away he said crossly,

"Just let me do it will you, Hutch? You don't want to bleed no more..."

"Starsky, you've been cleaning your spark plugs with that... for God's sake..."

"Shaddap."

Still holding the hand, Starsky pulled again at his inside pocket and this time produced several white squares, that, had Hutch been able to see better, would have told him came from the bar of the Kettle of Fish. He slapped them against the source of the bleeding underneath Hutch's thumb, and held them tight, breathing hard with the effort.

"OK, now you hold it... can you do that? You're not going to pass out on me are you? No use being a cop if you can't stand blood."

"I got it," said Hutch. He let his head drop back against the wall, and stayed there, eyes screwed up as Starsky leaned over him with his oily rag of a handkerchief, cursing as he manoeuvred it around the thumb and wrist, tying it off as tight as he could.

"There," he said eventually. "How's that?"

"Well it might stop the bleeding," Hutch muttered, "but just don't light a match near me, OK?"

He heard Starsky slumping back against the wall again, still breathing noisily, so he opened his eyes, lifted his head and moved it to have a look. All he saw was his partner's profile, white as milk, and a little trickle of dark down the side of his neck. For one sickening moment he thought it was coming out of his ear, and then he realized it had run a course from behind his head somewhere.

"Starsky... what you got there, huh?"

He got up on to his haunches and pulled Starsky forward off the wall. A touch to the back of the head brought forth a reassuringly loud "ouch, leave me alone, will you?", and a patch of red on the tips of his fingers.

"You got any more oily rags, Starsk?"

"Nope."

"OK, we'd better get you back to the car. We need to go somewhere and re-group."

"Re-group," Starsky mumbled, allowing himself to be hauled from the ground. "No kidding. Where we going?"

"Oh I don't know," said Hutch, ducking under his shoulder and getting a good grip round the waist. "How about somewhere we can get a cup of coffee and some good advice."

*

"Well if it isn't the Twilight Twins," Huggy observed coolly, when he came out from the kitchen at half past midnight and found what looked like two rejects from an illegal fist-fighting club huddled into the far end of the bar. "Ouch," he added, walking round the back of them. "Please tell me you didn't do this to each other. I know things are bad, but..."

"Lay off," Starsky growled.

"You got me worried," Huggy admitted. "Merl told me he had the Starskmobile on the ramps at his place... but I didn't know it had run over you first."

"Huggy, we just want a little care and attention," Hutch said.

"Well why didn't you say? Come on out back to my office. I got care and attention in bucket-loads out there." He led the way, saying over his shoulder, "Take good cheer, because Doctor Bear is here. Now I know all about prioritizing casualties... whose need is the greater?"

"His," they both said at the same time.

"This is great," Huggy said, ushering them through into the back room that he was pleased to call his "office", although it looked more like a storeroom. "Sounds like you're back together."

"I wouldn't bet on it," Starsky said, sinking into the only easy chair.

"Well in that case I'd better work in alphabetical order," Huggy announced. He removed a battered box full of LP's off a wooden upright chair and motioned Hutch into it. "What is that?", picking up the bound hand.

"It was all we had," Hutch said through gritted teeth.

"You two are the most slapdash cops I ever met," Huggy said. "Gonna have to start all over with this one. You're not bleeding out on me over there are you, curly?"

"Just get on with it," Starsky replied.

It was Huggy that did all the talking through the ministrations. He was well aware that it was more than minor injury that was making the two of them so quiet, sunk in their own thoughts, just glancing at one another every so often but saying not a word. He got a basin of hot water, and unwrapped the oily rag, which, apart from being smeared in engine oil, and now blood, was printed in tiny Sylvesters and at least one Tweety Pie.

"Cute," he said, throwing it towards Starsky. "Yours, I presume?"

Just a grunt in reply.

"Dunk it in," he ordered Hutch, pointing at the tattered hand.

"Dunk," Hutch said from his boots.

"That's right, dunk. As in... slam dunk. Now... easy... don't make me tip it all over my floor... you sure there's no lead in here, cause I'm not equipped for surgery... OK, OK, you can quit glaring at me... no sharps. What was it anyway? A catapult? You're not gonna tell me, I can see. OK, let's have it out... you can quit wriggling too. Man... alright, take it easy... I know... this stuff smells like wood alcohol, but it'll take away the pain... OK, looks like you lost a little chunk of hand... can't vouch for any splinters." He fell silent himself, as he packed the quarter-inch wound, Hutch still craning his neck to see the bottle Huggy had poured disinfectant from. The patient's shoulders had finally started to relax a little as the gauze was taped in place and Doctor Bear began to wind a soothingly pristine white bandage around his hand. Hutch was impressed with the deft way Huggy tucked the end under so it wouldn't unwind.

"Thanks, Hug. Nice work," he said.

"For that you get two pieces of candy and a lollipop," Huggy told him and turned away to rummage on some shelves, coming back with two aspirin and a glass of brandy. "Of course, you need to go to a hospital and get it stitched up properly, but if you were going to do that... you wouldn't be here, am I right?" Hutch just looked at him, his eyes a curious mix of defiant and unfocused as he put the pills on his tongue. Huggy pressed the glass into his left hand. "And now for the man who rammed into a brick wall with his head..."

Hutch knocked back the pills, grimacing at the heat from the brandy on his lips.

He vaguely listened to Huggy in the background, watching through slitted eyes.

"You mind if I have to shave your head?... come on, Starsky... I can't do nothing if you buck about like that... don't you see, I'm using humor to distract you from your pain... although, you know, actually all this curly stuff here has done you a favor... you're not even bleeding anymore. Just tryin to get all this grit out... man, you're such a baby... keep still, will you."

Huggy walked round and tipped Starsky's jaw sideways to get a look at the bruising on his face.

"What, you bounced off one wall into another one?"

"Ice, Huggy, just get him some ice," Hutch said. "And I'll get the candy and lollipops."

Huggy stumped off back to the bar and came in a few minutes later with a makeshift ice-pack. "Think it's too late," he mused. Starsky just grabbed it off him and slapped it on his cheekbone. His other hand was already curled around a glass of brandy. Huggy moved back and crossed his arms, looking at them both warily.

"You don't need me anymore, I can tell," he said. "I'll just get back to work then. Closing in half an hour."

"Thanks," Hutch managed.

"You got it."

The door of the office closed.

Hutch looked at Starsky lolling back in the easy chair, eyes closed, for a long time before he said, "They weren't there because of us, Starsk."

"No," Starsky said, eyes still shut tight. "But somehow it doesn't make me feel any better, know what I mean?"

There was another long silence, and then Starsky sat up, lowering the icepack into his lap. "Oh God, Hutch," he said, swallowing hard. "They had it all to come."

Hutch got to his feet and came over to sit on the arm of the easy chair. He draped one arm loosely across Starsky's back. It was not a particularly convincing gesture of solidarity, but it was something.

"I don't know what's going to happen to us," Starsky went on, sagging wretchedly into the chair, "but at least we got choices. We got choices... they got headstones. They were the good ones, Hutch, it shouldn'ta ended like that."

"No," said Hutch. "It shouldn't... which is why we've got to keep on with this thing. Somehow we've got to get ourselves together and find out what happened."

Hutch's commitment had always been admirable.

But what the hell is the point, Hutchinson? Ain't gonna bring them back.

"Wendy said they had the meet at three o'clock," Starsky said a little unevenly.

"You heard that? I thought you were busy throwing up a whole night of partying."

"And the 417 was called in at... what...?"

"I don't know, but we got the word from Despatch at around a quarter after two. They left the precinct right after lunch... so they must have got another call, or met someone else... you know, Starsk, they were good enough cops... better than us... if they'd had any concerns at all they'd have radioed in a code 77. They thought they were going somewhere safe."

Starsky clamped his hand round Hutch's kneecap as if to try and slow down his thought processes for a second. "One question."

"Go."

"Are we going to carry on working our system?"

Starsky looked up at him for the answer, seeing shadows and cheekbones, eyes made grey as mist by sorrow. The question had perturbed his partner, for sure. He looked like he could hardly grasp it, and Starsky did not want to see that.

Yes, Hutch, the system. You were all for it. It's what killed them in the end, and it'll probably get us, too.

"I don't know, Starsk," Hutch said in a weary tone. "What do you think?"

"I think it's the only system we got," Starsky replied.

He knew by now, after all these years, that Hutch usually flew steady. He didn't veer off-course for no reason, or do loop-the-loops just for the hell of it. He took whatever came on board and had the ability to carry it without the weight showing. Whatever it was, it was the same indeterminate something in Milo that Butch had always struggled to express.

Me and Butch, rocking all over the place. You guys... always got your eyes front. Looking steady to the horizon.

The warmth of Hutch's forearm against his neck was not comforting enough. It was there, but Hutch wasn't. Mind still working like crazy, a cop's brain on long legs. But no Hutch.

Losing ballast. Automatic pilot failure.

Can't help you this time, Hutch. Only got one parachute.


	6. Landing

**_The Chicago connection; killers on the loose; a pastrami sandwich; Damon and Pythias; a leap of faith; four fatalities and two hospitals..._ **

 

When John Srichapan opened his eyes he wished he had managed to sleep a little longer.

Sitting up and looking around he was aware that his wife was curled in a ball by his side, sleeping as if she were dead. She had crawled to bed even later than him. He got up and dressed, found her little note pinned to back of the door. Johnny, message from Les. Go see him in the morning. And get to the bank. He left the apartment with a bang of the door that would make no difference to her.

It was going to be early for rousing Les, but it sounded like he was expecting it. Srichapan knew it was imperative. Les was lazy, yes, and he worried. He was worried about last night.

He felt the loss of his little gun. Didn't like to go out much round here without it, especially not where Les lived. But there was nothing to be done about that. The main thing was to get to Les and remind him to keep it zipped about those two cops from last night. Srichapan could do without certain parties finding out he'd been forced to squeak, just a little bit.

After the cool night, the day was beginning to feel hot already. Srichapan took his usual back route, down the walkway behind the bar where he had run and ducked and fired. There was a blot of dry blood on the ground where that cop had gone over. It was a little rat-run, enclosed by the backs of warehouses. Sure, it had been dark as hell. But those cops had sure made a meal of it all.

Les had named them to him later. Starsky and Hutchinson. Worked out of Metropolitan, he said, didn't come round here so much. Said they were supposed to be top notch. Hadn't seemed like it last night. They'd been all over the place. And he'd winged one of them. A small smile came to Srichapan's face. He had almost forgotten, but he resolved to make a big deal of it to his wife -- when she eventually came to.

He rounded the corner at the end of the rat-run, moving at his usual sprightly pace.

And walked straight into a wide man standing tall enough to block the sun.

Fuck. It was that Mallon guy. Srichapan took a little look past him. Wherever Mallon was...

He didn't get time to focus on Rivero, to explain that he hadn't told the cops anything that would really help them, before taking three slugs right in the face.

Out on the water a deep horn blew. The booming, morose sound slightly disturbed Mrs. Srichapan. She rolled over, rubbed her nose fussily like a little mouse, and then fell back to sleep again.

*

Captain Dobey was standing in front of his bathroom mirror shaving at 7.20am. Behind him, Rosie sat on the lid of the white laundry basket swinging her legs and prattling to her doll. The steady beat of Cal's music was coming through the walls. Because of the music and the prattling he did not hear the phone ringing down in the hall, but he heard Edith's voice calling him, and he recognized the tone.

Flicking a blob of shaving foam in the direction of his daughter, Dobey slung a towel over his shoulder and clomped down the stairs to take up the receiver. Edith Dobey watched him, listening to the growl forming in her husband's throat. He did not say much, just made noises, then he put the phone down.

"No time for breakfast?" she wondered.

"Someone got killed down at the docks," he said over his shoulder as he went back upstairs. "Same M.O. as Milo Fenn."

*

Huggy made the Pits by midday, opened up, listened to Tigger and J.D. for about half a minute, and then went back out again, jogging the two blocks back to his apartment and in the front door.

Sinking on to his haunches at the side of the couch he poked at the mound lying there under a sheet and a yellow angora blanket with a fringe. The mound writhed and muttered. Huggy poked again, more insistently this time.

"C'mon, curly-top, open your eyes... c'mon, Starsky... I am the bearer of bad news, I need you to be looking at me when I tell you."

Starsky's nose emerged through the fringe, then his head poked right out, only one eye open and that one red-rimmed. In the daylight his face looked richly battered, his right cheekbone swollen up towards the closed eye. Yes indeed the icepack had been too late. He cleared his throat and attempted a sentence but Huggy remained unimpressed.

"How's the head?" he asked, proffering an arm for Starsky to grab on to and get himself sitting up. "I've been kinda worried you weren't going to wake up at all seeing as I went to sleep instead of checking you every two hours."

"Thanks," Starsky muttered in a phlegmy rumble.

"So you're all here, more or less? You compos mentis?"

"No I'm the Queen of Sheba."

Huggy tutted. "Infantile sense of humor still intact. I needn't have worried."

Starsky seemed to be considering the inside of his dry, sticky mouth, and touched an exploratory finger to his cheek. "What's this bad news?" he said.

"Wendy."

"What about Wendy?"

"Got himself wasted."

Starsky's exploratory finger dropped. He squinted up at his friend's face. "You putting me on?"

Huggy shook his head. "It's all over the street. Happened first thing this morning. And get this..." Starsky had moved a hand to feel about in the squashed curls on the back of his head, and he winced. "Seems he was put away the exact same way as one of your boys."

Now Starsky began to look alert. "Give me that again."

Huggy cocked his index and third finger and pointed them at Starsky's nose leaning his own on the base of his thumb. "Big gun. Close as this. Bang, bang, bang."

"Milo," Starsky said. He looked at Huggy, still squatting at his side. "Hutch awake?"

Huggy's face twisted. "He left a coupla hours ago."

"Hug?"

"Yeah, he was awake, showered and outa here by ten." Huggy patted his arm kindly. "He took on board painkillers and a bran muffin." He watched Starsky struggling to put his thoughts in order.

"So he didn't know about this?"

"Not unless he's psychic."

"And where was he going?" Starsky was struggling to get to his feet now, kicking at the angora blanket wound around his legs.

"He never said."

"Why didn't he wake me?"

"Well, you two aren't exactly..." and Huggy paused for slight dramatic effect, "Damon and Pythias right now."

Starsky stood up straight and looked Huggy right in the eye. Then he motioned his head to ask for an explanation.

"Two Greek dudes," Huggy said. He looked Starsky right back in the eye. "Woulda done anything for each other. Anything at all. 'Specially if the other one was in trouble." He saw a dozen random thoughts and images scoot across Starsky's face. "Is this news worse than I thought?"

Starsky grappled on his holster and it was not lost on Huggy that the movement was far from the usual seamless shrug. "Well I'm going out on a limb here, Hug," he said, "but if Wendy bought it after we talked to him last night, then I'd say we disturbed a rock... and something nasty crawled out from underneath." He rotated his head for his jacket and Huggy moved to a chair and threw it to him. "And... if it thinks Wendy squealed to us... then..."

"It could be looking for you?"

Starsky shrugged. "Hutch is coming at this from another way. And he doesn't know about Wendy. Where's his car?"

"He took it," Huggy said, "You know, I drove you two here in it last night after I finished being Dr. Kildare."

"I thought you were Dr. Bear."

"Bear... Kildare..." said Huggy in a whine.

Starsky got to the door. "If Hutch calls, Huggy, tell him to keep his head down."

"Hey, Starsky..."

"What?" said Starsky, halfway out the door.

"You know what I said before?"

"Ah, Hug, you've said so many things."

"Yeah well... you know... I don't want to be hearing about any crash-landings later, you dig it?"

Starsky winked his good eye and shut the door.

*

Hutch hadn't gone home. He wasn't at the Gym. He wasn't in the coffee shop he favored down on the boardwalk, and he wasn't back out pelting along his preferred running route. The only way Starsky could carry on looking for him was if he went home and got more money to pay the cab-driver, so he went home -- and found the LTD parked up outside.

Hutch appeared on the steps as he stumped towards them, his brows raised questioningly. Wearily Starsky raised some fingers.

"I got it," Hutch said, pulling him up the last step. "I made you coffee and a sandwich."

Starsky stumbled inside, smelling it, while his partner trotted down to give the cab-driver his last fare. When Hutch came back inside, Starsky already had the sandwich stuffed in his mouth. Through the layers of bread and pastrami he said, "You know, I kinda wish you'd married me instead of Vanessa." He negotiated a mouthful and swallowed it down. "Reckon we'd still be together."

"We are still together," Hutch said.

"Doesn't feel like it." Starsky fell backwards into a chair, bringing the sandwich with him. "You wandering off without telling me. Why'd you come here, anyhow? You got any soda hanging around?"

"You don't know? I couldn't sleep at Hug's... and my place is kinda... in a mess." Hutch looked closely at him. "How's the head?"

"How's the hand?" Starsky countered. He watched Hutch look down at his white paw and try to flex it, unsuccessfully.

"Probably need a tetanus shot... can't feel it... except when it... ow... hurts."

"Uh-huh." Starsky took a last mouthful and appeared to swallow it whole. "You want to hear my news?"

"That depends."

Starsky got out of the chair and went to his icebox. There was one bottle of Coke.

"Huggy found out that Wendy got a facefull of bullets this morning."

Hutch laid aside his cup of coffee. "Wendy?"

"Three at close range. Remind you of anything?"

Starsky began taking off his clothes, leaving them in a trail as he went into the bathroom, coke still in hand. Hutch had not replied, but was just sitting where he was, looking like he needed to be laying down in hospital. He was still there when his partner came back with wet hair, an even more ragged pair of jeans and a first aid box in his hands and sat down again opposite. As he leaned forward, Hutch did too, closing out the space.

"That's very bad news, Starsk."

"Yup, particularly for Wendy."

"And for us, partner."

Starsky reached across and picked up Hutch's bound hand. He began unwinding the bandaging and met no resistance today. "OK, easy does it... how in hell did you manage to drive... this is a mess, Hutchinson. It needs to be taken care of."

"So take care of it... that... ow, Starsky, that... that's... ow."

"Hmm, you could be right about the shot. You need stitching, too." Starsky glanced up. "You gonna let me deal with it? No more oily rags, I promise." He was holding Hutch's mangled limb in his own hand as if it were a precious object. "I may have to tie it up real tight, though... or you won't be able to use your gun."

"Do what you have to," Hutch said. "And I'll tell you what I found out about Wendy."

"He wasn't entirely truthful with us last night? Am I close?"

"Right on the button. I've been on the phone to Chicago all morning... the guy's file needed its own drawer out there."

"On the phone? My phone? All morning? To Chicago?"

"Ow. Starsky. Ow."

"Sorry, am I hurting you?"

"OK, look, it was in a good cause. You can put it on expenses."

"We're on leave."

"I'll sub you."

"Just tell me what you found."

"OK." Hutch felt the numbness creeping up his wrist, although most of his arm was tingling painfully. If he didn't know better he would have thought he already felt a little feverish. "We could have been on to this guy if we'd known that Butch and Milo had him on their team. He came out here from Chicago four years ago. Out there he liked to play the go-between. Got a whole history of working for contract killers."

"Chicago P.D. tell you why a contract killer might have wasted Butch and Milo?"

Hutch did not answer right away. He had gone more than a little pale.

"You OK?... No, right... this hurts... alright, I'll slow down. No, alright, I'll stop. Easy..."

"No," said Hutch faintly. "But Milo was from Chicago, right?"

"So something from the past."

"And Wendy set it up."

They looked at each other. Starsky was still in possession of the hand. "Guess it doesn't really matter what it was -- we gotta figure our names are in the frame now."

"No time to be one-handed," Hutch muttered. "You finished yet?"

"Nearly. Say, we gonna call this in?"

"Dobey doesn't want us to work the case. Lots of cops will scare this guy off, whoever he is."

"Let's get outa here," said Starsky. "Sure don't want to sit around and wait for him to come for us. I may only have half a face right now, but I'd rather leave it where it is." He looked down at Hutch doubtfully. "It's as tight as I can make it. But you're gonna need a doctor soon, Blintz, or you'll lose the hand." He stood up and reached down. "And then you'll have to be a southpaw like me." Hutch gripped hold of him with his left hand and let himself be raised to a standing position.

"About Butch and Milo," said Hutch. "You keep saying it wasn't us."

"Well?"

"Well you're wrong."

"How so?"

"They had what we had, Star. And it got wiped out. Don't you feel that?"

"But... we're still standing here, Hutch." Starsky reached out and touched the side of Hutch's pale and clammy face, as if he trying to wake him from a dream again. "We've still got it."

"You think?"

Starsky knew he himself had checked out of life for a while. He was still partially absent -- he knew that -- busy running away from thoughts of Tom and Milo. Even Lola and Martine knew he was running from something. But he had never doubted any of the real stuff. It felt like a lump of canker in his gut that Hutch had, and he had no clue how to deal with it.

He brought up his free hand to the other side of Hutch's face. "Believe it, partner. Just believe it."

Hutch still looked vague. Perhaps it was the wound. Starsky could tell it was full of crap, probably swilling infection all round his partner's over-stimulated and under-nourished system. He dropped the hands and nodded his head encouragingly, trying to elicit the same from Hutch, but all he got was a glassy-eyed stare.

Out on the street it seemed to be building up to another heatwave. Hutch felt perspiration break out in tiny prickles on his chest and back as Starsky began driving in a concerted loop around the outskirts of their usual beat.

"Where are we planning on going?" he asked.

"How about Mrs. Wendy?"

"There's a Mrs. Wendy?"

"So says Dr. Bear. Reckons she'll be headed to this place on Macauley for a score sometime."

"Even on the day her husband got butchered?"

"Well, when you've gotta score..." Starsky started, and then seemed to think better of it and subsided.

Hutch gazed into the wing mirror on his side, and then at the streets sliding by. "You really think someone's on our tail?"

Starsky only shrugged. He felt strangely clear-headed, and glanced at Hutch sunk into the seat next to him. He almost grinned. Somehow they had swapped roles overnight. Hutch caught the look but was unable to fathom why their situation might be in the least bit funny.

They did not find Mrs. Srichapan at her daily rendezvous on Macauley, but they did find an address for her.

"Coulda just called Dobey," Hutch mooted as they drove back down towards Market Street, seething in the daylight.

"Not part of the system," Starsky replied. "Flying solo, doesn't it just make you feel as free as a bird?"

"About as free as a sitting duck," Hutch replied. When they rolled to a halt below the apartment building he raised his injured hand off his lap. "Do me a favor will you, Starsk?"

"Huh?"

"Would you just get my gun out for me?"

"You can't get it?"

Hutch shook his head. "Gonna need to get at it with the left. This one's numb, I can't move it."

"Terrific," Starsky said, leaning over and taking the magnum from the holster. "Where'd you want it?"

Hutch snatched it with his good hand. "I'll think of somewhere," he said. "Let's go."

He got out of the car with difficulty, wincing slightly, both at the pain and at the contemptuous crash with which Starsky closed the driver's door.

"If you're not kind to her," he said, "she won't go."

Starsky snorted in derision. "Kindest thing would be to put it out of its misery."

"That's a her, Starsky. Put her out of her misery."

"Good idea," Starsky said. He raised his hand to knock on the door when a voice behind them said,

"She ain't here."

Hutch looked around. The door opposite was open a crack and a woman was peering out, chain still on.

"We're looking for Mrs. Srichapan," he said.

"Yeah. She ain't here."

"You know where?"

"Her old man got killed today."

"That's why we need to see her," Starsky said politely, easing his badge out of his back pocket and holding it forward.

"At her sister's," said the woman.

"Do you know where that is?"

"Might."

Starsky looked at Hutch, who was nearer, but Hutch just indicated his hand and shrugged. Starsky dug for some bills. They were plucked from his fingers as he held them forward and disappeared into the dark along with a crinkling sound.

"Hey, come on, lady..." Hutch said, full-blown irritation in his tone.

A mumbled, "Market West... 19, or 17, or somethin' like that." The door clicked shut.

"We can walk it," Hutch said. His partner invited him to go ahead. Already the burst of energy from the pastrami sandwich was beginning to fade and something hard was knocking him repeatedly on the back of his head.

"Do we have time to re-group again?" he asked. Hutch looked him over. The pea-soup tinge was creeping back.

"We should have brought Huggy, he could have done running repairs."

"How about a cup of coffee?"

"I've gone off coffee," Hutch said.

*

Mrs. Srichapan's sister offered them tea. The bereaved wife sat on a large floor cushion surrounded by a gaggle of women neighbors with their children, all drinking jasmine tea and thimblefuls of what smelt like paint-stripper but was probably some kind of rice wine. Her eyes and nose were red-rimmed and damp but she seemed happy to talk, as long as they sympathized carefully enough and did not dwell on her late husband's range of illegal activities. While Starsky listened through the drumming in his head, Hutch idly compared her to Lizzie Fenn, and to Sandra Jackson, neither of whom had been articulate on the day of their loss.

Mrs. Srichapan knew the names Cassidy and Fenn, but only, she said, from the newspapers. She told them she had met her Johnny on the very day he arrived from Chicago four years ago, in the bar on Market Street where he hung out with Lazy Les. Les was his best friend. A drunk, lazy and loyal friend. Who had left a message for Johnny to catch up with him this morning. Which he had tried to do. With fatal results.

"You spoke to Les?" Starsky heard himself ask.

"No, no. Guy call for Johnny. He give message from Les. They all do that those guys."

"Which guys?"

"Guys Johnny knows."

"Do you know their names?"

"No, no names. Just guys. You know guys."

Starsky's head started to whirl. He was vaguely aware that one of the women was pressing a little thimble into his hands, her blurry face nodding and smiling at him. Without thinking he lifted it to his lips and got a hit of the intense smell of the liquor. He locked eyes with Hutch.

"Make your head worse," Hutch said. He seemed to be concentrating more on Starsky than on the interview with Mrs Srichapan.

There was still something going on between them. Some mutual desire to push the boundaries. But this time Starsky wouldn't go with it. He remembered that he was the one who had to drive. He remembered that there was only a small pastrami sandwich doing its best to offset everything else he had blindly poured into his stomach over the last days. Most of all he remembered that he might be the only one who could use a gun. Shaking his head, which made it feel like someone was roughly entering his skull with a saw, he handed back the thimble.

"How we doing?" he asked, when they had got back into the LTD.

"You're asking me?"

They both started when the radio bleeped them. They looked at it, and then tangled a glance across the car.

"Well go on," Starsky said.

Hutch caught up the mic as the radio was into its second bleep sequence, and pressed the receive button.

_"Zebra Three, this is Despatch... are you reading?"_

"Receiving..." was about all Hutch could get out.

_"Been looking all over, Zebra Three... message for you... see the man named Huggy Bear... phone booth just after Ocean and Thurlow..."_

"Phone booth," repeated Hutch.

_"This is kind of a favor, Zebra Three... we know you're on leave and we're not a messaging service... are you reading?"_

"Loud and clear," Hutch said. He let go the button and clattered the handset back in its cradle. "Huggy's checking up on us."

"He's worried," Starsky suggested. "But why's he all the way out there?"

"Because he's worried?"

There was a little silence, while the LTD hummed along the sliproad into the downtown freeway.

"I'm worried," Starsky said. "What's Huggy messaging us for when he knows we're not at work?"

"He's trying to tell us something?"

"Or someone else is."

Starsky slowed the car right down, and then turned off towards a phone standing at the roadside up ahead.

"Go call the Pits," he said. "I want to know if Hug's really leaving us a message."

He got a dime out of his pocket and dropped it into Hutch's good hand, then watched as his partner tottered rather than walked across the dust and into the booth. The call was short, and then Hutch was back in the car, sweating like he'd run a marathon.

"He's not there."

"OK."

"Are you thinking Butch and Milo?" Hutch asked him.

"I'm thinking that something took them off course that day... a message from someone they must have trusted. I'm thinking that Wendy got a message to meet Les... and he trusted Les. He would have gone to see him without another thought. And I'm thinking..."

Hutch grappled up the radio mic again and pressed the button. "Zebra Three, Despatch... on that last message... you have any background for us? Over..."

_"That's a message taken by phone at 1400 hours, Zebra Three... meet at the phone booth, Ocean and Thurlow..."_

"Yeah, yeah, got that, Despatch... did you take that call?"

 _"You're not even on roster, Hutchinson,"_ crackled the radio angrily, _"Caller identified himself as Huggy Bear. A contact of yours... over."_

"Yeah..." said Hutch. He let go the button.

"Someone's being doing their homework," Starsky said grimly, and moved away from the curb without looking in his rear-view.

*

It took them nearly an hour to get out of town and up Ocean Boulevard as far as Thurlow. Starsky glanced over once or twice -- the first time Hutch was picking delicately at the bandaging on his hand, his brow furrowed; the second time he had his head slumped against the glass and appeared to be dozing.

Since they were not talking, Starsky spent the journey thinking it all over.

By the time they had tracked through two sets of diversions, come around again to try and reach Thurlow, ignored the road closure signs and then rolled slowly towards the barrier set up across Ocean he was no closer to deciding if their sanity depended on them doing this, or if it was some crazy death-wish. It was certainly not in line with protocol or good sense.

The LTD did a slow circle in front of the barrier and came to rest. It was raining. Hutch woke up.

They sat there in the car. Starsky still had his hand on the ignition key but he was not moving, just staring straight ahead out of the windshield in front of them. Hutch's shoulder was sunk into the door. He was even more sure he had a fever now.

"End of the line, partner," Starsky said.

"Bum information, huh?"

"Not sure."

Looking in the rear-view Starsky saw no other traffic.

"Raining," he said. "They've packed up for the day."

"What is this?"

Ahead of them a half-constructed road, littered with lumps of concrete. A line of parked construction vehicles were parked in the middle. Barely visible through the gloom the new road curled round into a elevation and went out of sight. There seemed to be no-one around. But there was a phone booth.

When Starsky got out of the car, Hutch followed, dragging his heavy legs around to stand next to him, feeling behind his back for his gun. "I'm not sure I..." he began but Starsky indicated for him to be quiet.

"Huggy knows a thing or two, right? If we do this... there couldn't be a better time to do as he says." He frowned into his partner's face, searching.

Hutch's look told Starsky he was struggling to pay attention.

"Come on, stay with me, Hutch. Need you to take notice. Sure better straighten up and fly right this time don't ya think?"

Hutch flopped his working hand down on Starsky's shoulder. He screwed his eyes up, gave back the nod his partner was waiting for. "Ready," was all he said. As they moved away from the car and came together on the kerb, he passed his hand briefly across Starsky's back.

Starsky said nothing, but he returned the touch as they stepped off the edge.

*

No sooner had Captain Dobey put the phone down on the Chief after a ten-minute conversation about wage freezes, than Dan Simons poked his head round the door.

"Got Chicago P.D. on the line, Captain," he said. "They were ringing back for Hutchinson... couldn't raise him at home."

Dobey frowned at Simons, as if he was trying to play a joke on him. What the hell was Hutch doing calling Chicago P.D. while he was on leave? "Put it through," he said, grabbing his coffee cup and swigging the cold contents.

It was a much shorter conversation than the one with the Chief. Simons knocked again after a few minutes and found Dobey sitting leaning his chin on one hand.

"Captain," he said, "Just wanted to report that we're about through with the Westline case. Did you get the report?"

"Uh?"

"About the arrests at City Residential... the evidence we stacked up the last few days... the stuff we found up on the... and the old couple... sir... definitely suicide -- he'd just had a terminal prognosis... sir?"

"Yes I got it. I've also got trouble."

"Captain?"

"I need you and McNulty in here in two minutes, Simons. And as many of the team working on the Cassidy-Fenn homicides as you can find."

It took Simons much longer than two minutes to round up the necessary personnel, and he warned them all that it looked like Dobey was ready to blow. The door was still open and they were still trailing in when he barked out, "How come we've missed the Chicago connection?"

Uneasy shrugs, an exchange of looks around the disparate group.

"Turns out that the docks homicide victim was from Sergeant Fenn's home town... turns out we might have a pair of Chicago hitmen here." Dobey, communicating worry from every pore, but masking it in his trademark rage, swung his gaze around the room. "And it turns out that Starsky and Hutchinson may be way ahead of all of us. And in the goddamned firing line!"

*

Having made the call to Metropolitan Division from the phone booth at the end of Ocean, Anthony Mallon watched his partner Rivero wandering off up the deserted chunk of freeway. Squeezing his towering frame down inside a front-loader he stared at the California rain slapping down in front of him and prepared to wait.

Make a plan. Make it a good one. And stick to it.

The boss's mantra had been spinning around his mind. It helped to keep him focused. He had been worried about staying focused once they left Chicago, never having been to the West Coast before.

Take it easy, even murdering scumbags sometimes feel insecure.

That was what Rivero had said to him, and Mallon had not appreciated it. He did not like being called a murderer. It made his job seem a little cheap. And he didn't like it that Rivero thought he was so fucking funny.

He had hardly moved, even hours later, when he heard the sound of a car approaching the barrier behind him.

Always helps when the bait is taken. Especially that quick.

His head eased up just a little, clearing the controls. One hand raised slightly. Even through the weather he did not need to stretch far to see Rivero's answering hand. It had been years and years they'd been doing this. Half the time he didn't understand what Rivero was talking about but they had their moves down pat.

Mallon saw them in the mirror. Saw the touch.

Unbelievable. They churning out clones over here?

That's it... go look in the booth. Man, you cops are so predictable.

He climbed out of the front-loader and dropped underneath it, slithering over the damp concrete and pulling himself up between the treads. A minute or so later he heard voices but could not distinguish what they were saying. But he could imagine. They had noticed some movement up ahead... they'd seen whatever Rivero had decided to do this time -- a flash of jacket, maybe even a face dodging out of sight, tantalizing them. Stupid, fucking cops -- they were all the same. Couldn't help falling into trouble.

Sure enough, figures moved alongside the front-loader, one on each side. Easy knee stance, backs to the wall, firepower at the ready. Mallon could not see anything but a wash of color, but he knew what they doing alright.

That's it... pass me right by. No-one in the cab. No-one underneath. Off you go, suckers. Follow the action. Like moths to the light.

When the figures, moving uneasily, had gone past, Mallon let himself down on to the concrete again. It was raining more heavily now, great warm drops falling vertically from the sky. Mallon couldn't judge this weather. It was alien to him and made him feel resentful.

*

Every so often Starsky got a glimpse of his partner between the vehicles. They were too far apart to communicate and Hutch didn't seem to want to look across at him. Both of them had seen the ripple of movement way up ahead. Hutch was steadying himself along using the unfinished wall. The thought that Milo's badge was with him gave him the impetus to put one foot in front of the other.

Starsky realized Hutch was getting ahead of him.

He looked behind, to see how far they had come. Something silver moved across his eyeline and he froze. He knew human movement when he saw it, even in poor light, with one and a half eyes.

Hold on a moment here... there's two of them?

"Hey, Hutch," he said out loud, but his words were of no use. Hutch was out of range already.

OK, so we're one on one here. No back-up. Flying solo after all.

Starsky swallowed down some fear and craziness. He hunched over a little, into the side wall, getting lower down. As if that could save him. And then began to retrace his steps.

After a while he moved in towards the vehicles, keeping one shoulder dipped. It was really time for things to go better, he thought to himself. After all the slipping and sliding in the dark on the roof of the Westline, and then being knocked down by Wendy... time to be the cop that Tom Cassidy and Milo Fenn so admired.

He got his chance sooner than he anticipated.

Mallon's flying leap from above was something that Starsky had always been rather proud of being able to do himself. But he never heard this one coming. Never saw it. All that happened was that out of nowhere a great bulk landed on his shoulders, and the momentum propelled him forwards and down. His gun was gone before he hit the concrete, but at least that gave him two hands to try and break the fall. Meanwhile the lower half of his body buckled completely beneath the sudden and tremendous weight. He knew, if he didn't move quicker than he had ever done in his life, he was going to lose his face.

Since there was clearly no point attempting a straight contest of physical strength, Starsky went for the lowdown, dirty, cheating option. He squirmed around and got both his hands to the wrist of the mountain man, just as his pistol fired off three, stuttering shots. His hold was just strong enough to divert them low over his head, but then he lost the grip. So he kicked, hard as he could, like he was sending a ball the full length of a football field, aiming the end of his sneaker squarely between the legs.

Mallon howled and rolled away. As he tried to get on his knees, another kick sent the pistol flying away underneath the mini-crane to his left. The cop had scrambled up and was circling, like he was planning the killer blow. That would have made Mallon laugh, if he hadn't been in roaring agony. He looked at where the gun had got to. It was out of reach. But in the cab of the crane was a whole mess of stuff -- wrenches, spades, drill bits. He got both hands around something heavy and rose to his feet.

Starsky dodged the first attacking lunge, but the fall and the kick had left him weak, his legs turning to cooked spaghetti.

Oh God, Hutch, I don't want to leave you with two to deal with. That ain't fair.

Mallon swung again. He could not have explained where he trademark style came from. All he knew was, he always went for the face. It helped to underline that the target was wiped out, if the face was gone. Otherwise you might get them staring at you, and he couldn't abide that.

The wooden handle he had grasped felt like a baseball bat, and he swung it just so. The flat end of a shovel caught the cop full on the top half of the face. Must have made contact with skull -- there was a dull, clanging noise and he went over backwards and toppled flat. Mallon stood where he was for a second, the spade still swinging gently in his hands. He took a step or two and peered down. Yup. Couldn't see the face. The features, which, he had noticed were already battered, were now indeterminate lumps of flesh, completely disguised by a thick covering of sticky red, pouring down from the split that the sharp edge of the shovel must have opened.

At that point he heard a couple of rounds being fired up ahead by Rivero, which made it look like the day was pretty much wrapped up. He put aside the shovel and turned away.

It made no sense to him that the cop on the ground should suddenly move. And move so fast. Before he had time to a adopt the solid stance which served to defend him against all comers, the most solid punch he had felt in a long time connected with his jaw. It didn't do much damage to the jaw, but Mallon fell over backwards, tripped across the spade and went down, banging his head on hard metal. The California sky, just starting to blue up again, swung into view and then went black.

Starsky nearly fell on top of him, his legs tangled up in Mallon's. He had heard the shots too, and that was why he had moved. For a couple of seconds before, playing dead seemed like a good option. But then he realized that the shots were not coming from Hutch's magnum. Touching a feeble hand to his mashed forehead caused a new flow of blood over the single eye that was able to see anything at all. He waved his head around trying to get a good sight-line and then stumbled off in the direction of the shots. He had not got very far when he heard groaning coming from behind him. The big man was coming round.

*

By the time Hutch had reached the end of the line of construction vehicles and the end of what had provided relative cover, Starsky no longer seemed to be over the other side. Their assailant, wearing brown, had disappeared around the corner, up the rising gradient of the new elevation.

Hutch's gun was gripped in his left hand, while his right remained curled into his stomach. That whole arm hurt, except for his hand which felt nothing. Waves of hot and cold washed in and out like the tide. For all he knew Starsky could have passed out by now.

Up ahead, small blocks of concrete were dotted on the unfinished road. Since the side walls were full of gaping holes, Hutch figured they were parts of a jigsaw that hadn't been slotted in yet. They were hardly enough to keep a professional hitman at bay -- if that was who it was up there -- but they were all there was. Hutch leaned back against his nearest wall for a second, trying to force some semblance of clarity on himself.

He was about two blocks up, crouched down into the smallest target he could possibly make himself, when he heard Mallon's round of three coming from behind.

Gunfire. That sound. That sound coming from thirty seconds away... Starsky was not here... it meant that he was there, and that sound was coming from where he was.

Going out in a blaze of glory... oh, for fuck's sake, Starsky...

Hutch curled further forward, his head touching the knuckles on his left hand. For a bit he just sucked air in and out, eyes shut tight. Now he was cold, shivering in his damp clothes like he was waking from one of those nightmares. He saw the body spreadeagled in front of him, drowning in blood and rain.

Two inches of concrete was shaved off the block. Then a couple more off the side. Grit showered down on him. Instinct kicked in. Hutch was surprised by that.

He rose from his crouch, set off towards the next block, firing wildly in front of him. As he hit his knees on the ground behind the new one most of it disintegrated. He inhaled dust and felt his throat tighten with it. Then he went again, because he had no choice. On this run he had a vague sight of the stark end of the new freeway. It finished like the edge of the world into nothing but sky. For the very first time he got a look at a whole figure. A guy with grey hair in a brown suit, and Hutch fired his last shot at him. Answering fire chattered back and he felt his gun leaping from his left hand and spiraling up into the air behind him. Metal went right through his forearm at shocking speed and he fell down on his face, the arm under him, and lay there.

Hutch lay there waiting for the 'coup de grace'. Back of the head... had to be. But no footsteps approached him. He lay there with his mouth full of road, his heart thundering against the ground and for a bit heard nothing. After half a minute more he heard very faraway traffic sounds, but they had been there all along, he knew that. Without moving either arm he lifted his head, taking it off the ground by degrees. The end of the freeway loomed into view. His eyes swept left and right. Under the left-hand wall lay a figure, brown and indistinct. Not moving.

His head drooped down again, his cheek scraping the gravelly surface. An involuntary groan escaped him. It was the pain. The pain in both his arms. He could feel blood draining out.

Slowly he came to his knees, levering himself up somehow, wondering why he was bothering.

"Get up," a voice said behind him.

Hutch coughed out a mouthful of road. Something warm skidded into him sideways and came to rest. His eyes lighted on blue denim and he coughed again.

"Gotta get up, Hush," the voice said in his ear. It was a thick, sticky voice. The warm weight was pressing against his shoulder. "Guy's behind us. 'sgot a gun. Come on. Get up, Hush."

He risked a look. "Oh God," he said out loud. "What'd you do? Starsky, what'd you do?"

Starsky was plucking at his sleeve, trying to raise him. "'Nother one," said his voice, sounding strange coming from that pulped face.

Hutch got to his feet. As he got to his full height he heard a whirring sound in his head, like everything was loose, a rhythmic vibration seeming to come from far away. Somehow they were holding on to each other and walking.

"Gotta get off here," Hutch said. The realization that Starsky was still alive had cleared his mind. He could feel his partner staggering, could see the dark red drops on his sneakers. They arrived at the wall and found it was not finished. Starsky's hand had closed around the back of Hutch's shirt under his jacket. The whirring sound was getting louder now, seeming to come from outside his head. Hutch hung over the wall a second and then lurched back, trying to take Starsky's weight.

"See that, Starsk? See that? We can land alright on that."

There was nothing in reply, just breaths heaving in and out while Starsky's hand remained clutched to his shirt.

Hutch could tell by the grip that Starsky could see nothing.

"OK, Starsk... OK, soldier... listen to me... we gotta jump."

Still no reply, but a groggy sound that might have been a laugh.

"I mean it," Hutch said. "Trust me. We gotta go over. Hear the copter, Star? Cavalry's coming... but we gotta go now." He peered for one second more through the gaping hole in the wall. A dumpster lay beneath, covered in tarpaulin. Underneath that, perhaps something that would soften the landing. Or something that would kill them.

"Trust me," he whispered. "When I say jump, you jump."

Rotor blades were starting to cut up the ground now, whipping Hutch's hair. He heard Starsky let out a whimper of pain as sand and grit blew into his face. Behind his shoulder he was very vaguely aware of a tall shadow moving up, but he did not turn to look at Mallon, or the gun pointed at his head.

"Jump," he said. He did not shout it, or pull Starsky, or push him. As he jumped forward he heard shots firing, the sound tossed wildly into the air. He knew by instinct that Starsky was going with him, had moved as soon as the word left his lips, no hesitation, hurtling forward into nothingness.

Hutch did not feel the landing -- or at least he could never remember the moment of impact. He knew he must have rolled over and suddenly felt nothing in any of his limbs. The great sky was above him, filled with white and silver shapes. All the noise had faded into a hum. He felt alone, lying flat on his back on nothing. After a while his eyes drifted closed, still full of grit.

When he opened them again, nothing.

*

After the initital call, the paramedics in wagon 424 received word that there were four fatalities at a road construction site on Ocean. Already a crime scene, they were told. Police attending. They slowed right down, went off siren, let themselves be absorbed in the thick circulation of traffic once more. Chris, the driver, pointed with one finger at the dash, which meant that his ginger-haired partner had to unwrap another stick of gum for him.

 _"Revise the last call, 424,_ " they heard some minutes later. _"Proceed to construction site, Ocean and Thurlow. Number of fatalities unclear."_

Chris bit down on the gum. You'd think people would know dead bodies when they saw them.

They got re-directed once they arrived. There were already two ambulances and a police squad-car parked by an abandoned brown Ford LTD. Everyone was moving slowly.

"Need you under the freeway, 424... we got air ambulance incoming."

Under the freeway there was another ambulance and three more police vehicles.

"Is whirlybird gonna be able to set down?" Chris said out of his window to a large black man with a radio handset who seemed to be in charge.

"We can clear it," the man said. "I'm Dobey, Captain at Metro."

"Who's injured, sir?"

"Two of my men," Dobey said, leading the way.

Chris could see two paramedics working on top of a dumpster. They seemed to have a casualty already strapped to a backboard. At the side of the dumpster a uniformed police officer was bending down next to the collapased figure of a dark-haired man in jeans, whose prone body gave the impression it had dropped out of the sky straight into the recovery position. Chris put his bag down. He was already thinking... shit, how do we get a line in here? The dark-haired man's head was bleeding profusely both front and back.

"Unconscious," said the police-officer, moving aside. "May have stopped breathing."

"Stay and play?" asked the ginger-haired paramedic, but his opposite number shook his head smartly.

"No way... load and go, baby, load and go."

*

Hutch was flying.

He could tell.

There were clouds moving, and the tops of buildings passing him by. It was all very peaceful. He could feel his chest rising and falling, but other than that he figured he could have been completely disembodied. Certainly his limbs did not appear to be with him.

A slight pressure across his face suddenly eased but then it was not so peaceful anymore. Now he could hear a low-level thundering noise, and realized that there were vibrations underneath him. He decided he had been given something pretty heavy-duty to make everything seem so numb and floaty. Which meant things had to be looking bad.

"Hey, Hutch... can you hear me?"

Hutch moved his eyes to one side, realizing his neck was being held in a brace. A figure was huddled there holding an oxygen mask. He looked the other way and saw his own hand and arm covered in blood and grasped in Captain Dobey's. He decided that was probably an image he would take with him to wherever he was going.

"Take it easy now... we're on our way."

Why the hell am I up here?

"Think you may have hurt your back, son. We're flying you in to UBC... you're doing fine."

Hutch didn't like the numbness that was now creeping up to his mouth.

"Sars..." he managed to say.

"They're taking care of him, Hutch. He's on his way to Memorial."

Hutch tried to focus again at his hand encased in the Captain's. It looked comforting, even though he couldn't feel the warmth.

No-one's with him.

The thought came with such a rush that he blacked out.

*

It was a long time later that he approached consciousness again and could appreciate, even without opening his eyes, that his hand was still held. Being able to feel it was more precious to him than he could believe and he deliberately stayed with the sensation, kept his eyes shut tight. It was good, too, to feel like he was no longer flying. Wherever he found himself now was not exactly comfortable, but it was getting near. He lay there on his back paddling slightly in the warm water, basking in the weightlessness. When the first picture came to him it was the one of the empty bed, and he was so disturbed to be visited by one of his dreams that he quickly opened his eyes.

Lizzie Fenn was sitting there and he suddenly felt cold all over again.

Milo and Tom could not be far behind.

"Hello, Hutch," Lizzie said. She did not have the piercing, accusatory look that belonged to the Lizzie of his dreams. There was a warmth about her that he had actually never noticed before.

"Hmmmm," he said, and she smiled. Hutch thought he had not seen her smile since... well, not for a long time.

Her hand jiggled his slightly. "I'm your first visitor," she said. "I've been sitting out there with Captain Dobey for the longest time, Hutch."

Hutch looked at the hand she held. Further up the arm he was in plaster. His other hand, now he could feel it again, was starting to burn once more. He couldn't tell anything about his legs, but one of them seemed to be suspended in front him. Shit, it should hurt, but it didn't.

"You're in traction," Lizzie told him. "Broke your pelvis, your leg. You want to know what else? Well, I'll tell you anyway... this arm here? Bullet fractured your femur. You got a septic hand... and they had a tough time with you in surgery, numbskull, because you were so dehydrated. What's it all about, Hutch?" The question was kindly. "They don't know about your back yet... guess that's the worst I can tell you. Apart from that, well... you're alive."

"Starsky?" Hutch mouthed at her, frightened.

Lizzie became instantly tearful, but it seemed more in anger than grief. "You know," she said. "You and your partner remind me why I married that crazy, dumbass husband of mine in the first place. David's over at Memorial. All I know is that he's still unconscious after the fall. We've been kind of worried about you."

"Worried 'bout me..." Hutch said, remembering the Captain telling him not to mind about Starsky. How senseless. They were partners. That was all that mattered. "'s'e got anyone?"

"Your friend Huggy."

"Needs me."

_I was just coping, Starsk. Just scared of being left. But I didn't forget. It's the same as it ever was._

"Needs me," he repeated, but realization of his own helplessness made him feel the opposite was just as true.

_I need you, Starsk. Where are you? Where the hell are you?_

"I know, but we can't fix that right now... it's alright... we won't let him be alone." She stroked his hand and they stared at one another. Then Lizzie said, "They were called Mallon and Rivero, Hutch. You want to know about this?"

What else have I got to listen to while I'm lying here with a broken back, was his immediate thought. But he felt a surge of optimism at the strength with which he managed to nod at her.

"They got sent here from Chicago," Lizzie went on, absently patting at his hand, "because... because once, long ago, Milo gave evidence that helped put away a man called Jonathan Finlay. You probably never even heard of him. Yeah, well he was all over the papers back there. Long, long ago. Milo wasn't even a cop then. He was a student... hadn't even thought about the force, can you believe that? Seems he was always on Finlay's list, and when it came time to call it in, Mallon and Rivero took the job. Srichapan helped them out -- we don't think Milo even knew he was from Chicago. He just seemed like a good contact for stuff they were working on. And the whole stupid, meaningless thing took Tom down too." She pulled away her hand and scrubbed at her eyes. "And I thought Wendy was Tom's secret girlfriend."

Hutch listened to all this, not being able to help making connections, thinking it through, even lying here, busted and broken. He waggled his fingers at Lizzie so she put her hand back in his.

He tried to lift his other arm to indicate something, but he couldn't get it off the bed.

"What is it?"

"My jacket around?"

Lizzie looked about her. She shrugged, got up and went to the locker under the nightstand. "Nothing here," she said. "But I guess they had to cut it off you... hey, what's this?" She emerged from the locker, straightening up and holding out Milo's badge towards him.

"Take it," he said. "You take it now."

Lizzie looked down at the scuffed metal. She touched it. "You bunch of crazy, dumbass cops," she said, and tucked it away in her pocket. Then she came and sat down again beside him.

*

For the first time in long weeks, Starsky was dreaming.

To begin with it was him and Hutch just sitting in a car, driving along, and Hutch was asleep. He looked kind of peaceful but Starsky felt a nagging worry all the same. Then it was Lola and Martine, a long way away, shouting at him. Finally, at last, at long last, it was Tom and Milo. Flashback dreams of soccer on the beach, papering Lieutenant Mulligan into his office, then party dreams, nothing but party dreams. It felt good to see them again.

Trouble was, when he woke up the pain in his head was so bad that he just wanted to die. And nobody around but strangers. Not that he could see them. His eyes felt like they were stitched shut. He knew he was not breathing by himself.

_Need you, Hutch. Need you right now._

For a long time he was alone, wanting to go back to the dreams, willing to sell his soul not to have to be awake anymore. He knew he tried to complain about the pain but there was no-one around who could read the messages. It seemed fitting that, having separated himself so effectively from his right hand man over the past weeks, he was now left alone to suffer the consequences.

_I was just coping, Hutch. Taking some time. Didn't mean things had changed._

And then one day he felt Hutch threading some fingers into his hair, the flat of his hand moving gently on his skull. Didn't need eyes or ears to know it was him.

_Hey, you come looking for me at last. Yep, that patch there -- think that's all that's left of me._

"See you later, Hug," he heard. "They're coming down about the scan. I'll let you know." A door closed. "Hang in there, Starsk," he heard. "I'm right here."

So he just waited for those times, when he would hear Hutch speaking and feel him trying to read his messages and stroke it all away.

The doctors only ever said bad things. Worried about his eyes and his jaw. Worried about what it seemed he had crushed and broken when he rolled off the dumpster. Most of all, worried about his brain.

Nothing wrong with my brain. Just hurts, is all. Hutch ain't worried.

And although he couldn't see anything, or say anything, after a while he began to work it out. Hutch squeaked along to visit in a wheelchair. Very often it was Huggy who wheeled him in. Starsky could hear them bickering all the way up the corridor. The blond had blintzed himself but good. Went and landed on his back but somehow he hadn't bust it. The bruising and fractures had kept him at UCB a long time though -- that, and the septic hand.

"Wasn't your spark plugs, Starsk," Hutch reassured him. "Should have had that shot -- you know, just like we said."

"He's knitted up real nice," Huggy told him. "Could be Captain Dobey's first bionic cop. There's a little space on the cast we left for you to make your mark."

Starsky worked out about Mallon and Rivero too. He felt ambivalent knowing Mallon had been shot dead by a police marksman in a helicopter and that Rivero had sustained a shoulder wound from Hutch's magnum. Relieved to hear that Lizzie Fenn had taken Milo's badge back, though. She was headed to Chicago for a bit -- but not for good. She wanted to stand up to her new reality, not run away. Milo would be proud.

Best thing was hearing Hutch flying right again.

"See you soon, Gordo," he heard every time the hand left his head and Hutch squeaked out of the room. "Tough it out, buddy. Maybe tomorrow, huh? Maybe tomorrow."

At first he had no idea what that meant. Bit by bit he came to understand what everything was working up to. There were a legion of jokes he could have made, at his own expense, if he had been able.

You should be glad, Hutch. Finally you're going to be prettier than me.

Hey, Cap, meet your new team -- Scarface and Crutch.

He had to be content with a private, silent snicker, thinking of himself as a character in a Tom and Jerry cartoon with a shovel-shaped face. Hutch and Huggy were not up to making jokes, but he was glad about that. Glad too that he could cry in peace behind his bandaging, although it tended to clog up the nasal tube and made them think he had stopped breathing.

Then finally, after far too many todays, tomorrow came.

In the dark of a shuttered room they couldn't sit him up because of the tubes and because his caved-in ribs were still giving trouble, but they were going to unwrap him at last. Pushed through plenty of pain relief first, got Hutch to squeak in and be beside him. Then, layer by layer, re-introduced him to the world.

Moving air touched newly-exposed skin. He felt a sudden awareness that the bridge of his nose was throbbing. What didn't tingle, burned. "You're all gummed-up there, Starsk," he heard Hutch say. Warm liquid brushed across his eyelids and trickled down his cheeks to get lost in the gauze.

"OK, David, when you're ready," said an unknown voice that he immediately tried to tune out.

"OK," he heard Hutch say. "Come on, kiddo. Open your eyes for me."

Who are you calling kiddo?

Starsky opened his eyes, one lash at a time, and it was all dark.

"Easy," Hutch said, and the hand was back on his head, holding him together. "It'll come. Easy there."

He saw the shape of the lamp above his head first of all, and then the door-frame.

Then the face, clear as day, looking like it had been sitting out in the sunshine and drinking beer.

"Hey, Starsk," said the face. "You've landed."


	7. Epilogue

By the end of August the Bay City weather had shaken off its convulsions. There were no more heatwaves followed by downpours and the sky was blue and cloudless day after day.

Captain Dobey put off his annual vacation until he had no more hospitals to visit, and then he took the family up to Pine Lake.

Down on the beach there was no volleyball, or frisbee, or soccer with a tennis-ball. Just time spent at the spot where there used to be.

It was some weeks since they had talked about anything except what to bring. Hutch had tried to interest Starsky in the Walt Whitman book, without much success, and Starsky had gone through several small transistors, managing to fill them all up with sand somehow. Hutch couldn't move very freely and Starsky was still on soft food, but they had laughed a lot.

Of the sharp descent from two funerals to the dumpster they had said nothing. It was enough that they had clung right back on to each other at the place where they had been torn off. More tenaciously than ever.

"Rodney and Ella-Mae," Hutch mused, shifting his stiff leg so it was resting on the end of the bench that Tom and Starsky had always colonized. "You ever known anything like that, Starsk? One says jump, and you both jump? That's something else, huh? Really takes some doing." The mix of playfulness and admiration in his voice seemed to amuse his partner, who looked out to sea, narrowing his eyes, testing them as usual. Hutch reached across the table and touched a hand on the back of the dark head, needing to feel the solidity. Starsky turned slightly and got hold of the hand with his own, brushing a thumb across the scar. Then he looked across the table, laid the hand down and patted it, twinkling up into Hutch's face.

"Lola and Martine," he said.

"I'm sorry?" Hutch knew at once he was being abruptly dragged from the serious to the ridiculous. He took hold of the beer bottle that he had been resting inside the fold of his arm-sling and held it up his mouth.

Starsky grinned at him. "An old vaudeville act... you never heard of them? Man, they had perfect timing."

Hutch was suspicious of the grin, but too glad to see it breaking through the patchwork of damage to mount any kind of serious challenge. Just Starsky spouting his horses for courses nonsense.

"Like Abbott and Costello, huh?"

"Sure. Bread and Butter, Hutch," Starsky replied, holding his face up towards the sun. "Lock and Load."

"Rock and Roll," said Hutch, and then added, "Stan and Ollie."

Starsky obliged, pulling sadly at his hair until Hutch snorted with laughter and knocked his teeth on the top of the beer bottle.

*

_"Vodka and lime," said Milo from the top step. He poked Tom with his toe. "That's got to be the best partnership in the game." He took a large swallow of his beer and then considered. "Although... maybe ham and eggs." He swallowed again, smacked his lips, got ready to set off on one of their marathons._

_"Mallon and Rivero," Tom offered._

_"C'mon, Butch, keep it light. Mack and Mabel."_

_"OK then, Simon and Garfunkel."_

_"Smith and Wesson."_

_"Very up-market. Rowan and Martin."_

_Upstairs the voices came floating to Lizzie through her open window. She could tell they were playing, just from the tone, even though the words were not clear._

_"Peanut butter and jelly," said Milo._

_Tom tipped his head back, closed his eyes for a second. He raised his beer bottle so the sunlight came slanting through the glass._

_"Us," he said._

_"Yeah," said Milo and he leaned down to Tom. "Us."_

_"And them," Tom added._

_"Of course them... ain't no us without them."_

_Lizzie distinctly heard their very last clink of beer bottles in the sunshine. A little smile crept over her, and then she pushed the window shut a ways so she could concentrate on her work._

 

THE END


End file.
